i actually didn't drop off the face of the earth deliberately. real life hasn't been crazy busy, just distracting, but work and writing have both kept me quite occupied (i should be reading the slush pile even now). real life has had its moments though: car issues, health issues, family issues. so, yea, distracted.
my ironproblem has reared its ugly head again, and i was too slow in picking up that was what was going on. really, with a 3 month period, it should have been common sense, but i haven't had to deal with it in 2 or 3 years, so i just didn't think about it when i started feeling tired and run down again. two weeks ago, when i started sleeping most of the day, the light bulb finally went on. i'm back on my multivitamins (which had run out early the week before last) and have ordered some iron supplements. hopefully i've caught this mess early enough that it won't take me a year or more to get back on track. having the forever period go away and stay away (i'm bleeding again after about a break of a week and a half) would also help, but, as long as i am bleeding, i'll stay on the supplements. i'd only stopped taking them because my period went m.i.a. for almost 2 years, and too much iron is almost as bad as too little.
we also had a little tangle when it came to the car and our $25/week on utilities plan. saxy paid the guy for the part, then he disappeared. long story short, he got stuck somewhere, but, for reasons beyond us, didn't bother to call. quite irritating. so, we were trying to figure out how to get the part and get the car taken care of. we were supposed to start the payments plan last week, but now we're going to have to start it this week. fortunately, saxy's hours are going up rather steadily now--it being summer and all. hopefully i'll be able to catch up the missing week fairly quickly and be able to tuck some money aside for the winter when things slow down. won't be enough to get us through more than a month, but something is better than nothing. we'll see.
we've determined how we're spending our economic stimulus check, assuming we get one (we're sooooo hoping): kitten needs the vet, car registration/insurance, washer & drier, and dragon*con expenses (including paying middle daughter to watch the kids saturday and sunday). the washer & drier have become a bigger priority now that the drier is starting to sound like it wants to die as well.
lp has been busy. i had 2 manuscripts under deadline this past week or two, so was pretty focused on trying to get those done and returned to the authors...at least when i wasn't sleeping. :P we're prepping for our first release and official launch in august. i also need to do some small updates to the handbooks and some web work--we're adding an employment page. we've had one line editor resign due to lack of time and it looks like i may be in the acquisitions position more or less permanently. fortunately, acquisitions isn't that tough of a job yet. i'm already considering options for when it gets busier. more than likely i'll continue with acquisitions but do very little actual editing myself--just manage the editors and assign books to them, for the most part. once it gets too busy for even that, well, then we'll see. i think we may have to just extend our response time since i like the way we do things now, but i don't get the final word on the process. ;)
i've also been very buried in my revisions of a.c. these latter chapters are requiring more rewriting than revising, actually, and it's slow and hard. i hate revisions, but i'm discovering that i hate rewriting even more. :P
the larger rumbles in the family aren't directly with me, but distracting none the less. trin has indicated he wants a divorce, and, behavior-wise, seems to have pretty much checked out of the marriage. there are other issues going on there that i'm not going to get into here, but suffice it to say i'm not very happy with him and said behavior. kitten is pretty messed up over it--she has really been bending over backwards to try to work it out, but all he does is blame her for the failure of the relationship. it's upsetting, to say the least. we've told her to come home, but she's determined to try to work it out (especially with baby cat involved), which is commendable up to a point. with the things that she's told me that are going on, i think it's past that point (and we've told her that "staying together for the baby's sake" is not a good enough reason to stay in a miserable marriage), but all i can do is let her know we're here for her. it's been emotional for everyone involved. trin's parents are upset about it as well.
closer to home, froggy is having clepto issues again, but it looks like a lot of it is related to meds. she's been off for a few because she and taz are on the same dose of concerta--he ran out and we had them both using hers. so now she's out and won't be back on for at least a month to a month and a half. we've told her that she's still responsible for her behavior, but there are going to be control issues, i guess. hopefully it will all settle out when we get her back on her meds. taz has also had a change in meds--he's no longer on the serequel and seems to be doing fine. that boy has also grown 2" in the last 4 months! :O
beyond all that, things are actually pretty quiet. i actually didn't mean to get so quiet for so long, but i've been keeping myself busy. i even managed to put up some more of my old linkware sets. i've missed working on graphics--just haven't had the time for them. i may try to cut some time out every now and then to do stuff now, though. it was nice getting things up--especially a few sets that i wasn't sure would ever make it back online.
this week should be pretty quiet. my manuscripts are back in the hands of their authors. i have some style sheet updates to do, but that's about it for that. some web work. some writing stuff. until the manuscripts come back, the week is pretty much mine. which might mean another silence just because there's nothing to write about, but we'll see. hopefully i won't take so long to write again. it's just easier to not have to break the silence at all.
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word of the moment: largo
a composition or passage that is to be performed in a slow and dignified manner; very slow in tempo and broad in manner; slowly and broadly
