still in the middle of busy, and it only looks to be getting worse very soon. for one, the kids are done with school in 3 days. for froggy, this is temporary. she missed her crct math requirement by 10 points and now has to go to summer school. fortunately, it's free and they're even providing transportation this year. we register her on june 5, she starts 26th and goes through to july 17. she's not thrilled, but we managed to appease her a little by telling her she'd be taking a bento with her. i've even given her my square hello kitty box since i have a new box i like much better.
of course, she doesn't know (yet) that the plan was to pack bento lunches regardless. it'll make life easier on me to have their lunches ready in advance.
my biggest trial this summer will be keeping taz busy, especially once froggy starts her incarceration. ;) i'm sure i'll manage something -- he has his ps2 games he likes, and he's been asking to watch stargate sg-1 again. i just hate having that be his summer. but, unfortunately, i gotta do some work during the day or it won't get done. i better figure something out -- next year he gets home around 2:30 instead of 4 and that's going to cut deep into my current work time.
going backward from here...
we took the kids to see ironman this weekend. actually, we took them on friday -- the same day taz's class held an early birthday party for him. it probably was a bit of sensory overload for the poor kid, but i do think he passed out much earlier too, despite the sweets from his party. we still have the cookie cake, but i'll be tossing that out today. the movie was pretty good. saxy said he heard that some people had some issues with the synthesized voice, but i had no problems with the movie at all. a rare thing indeed. i really enjoyed it. afterwards, we went to dinner at a fave mexican restaurant we haven't visited in a long, long, loooong time. the evening was a bit more expensive than it should have been, but we haven't been out for awhile. it's cut into a few things, but we'll manage, as always.
in general, even though we haven't managed to get on track with the $25/week thing, we are doing okay. at&t sent a disconnect notice even though i paid more than half the bill already, but that's at&t. you get 2 weeks or they start threatening you. and any previous payments don't count as an attempt in their book, apparently. or maybe they do, but an attempt isn't worth much to them. yea, they suck. the water bill is a bit higher than i'd like, but that's kind of a losing battle anyway. the faucets in this house leak, even after they're "repaired", the water company is raising rates because of the drought, and blah blah blah. we're doing better than we were, and it should be enough for the moment. so, financially, yea, not where we want to be, but not in the massive hole of doom from a month or two ago. we'll go with that and be content. ;)
last week was also taz's i.e.p. meeting. he's doing extraordinarily well: he's met all but 4 of his goals, and those just generally need to be adjusted or worked on. included in the meeting was the teacher of the class he'll be going into. he'll be getting a new teacher when he gets there, but she's not officially a county employee yet so couldn't attend the meeting. i learned some surprising things about my boy. like he's good at baseball (at least as long as it's with a lightweight bat and ball). and some of the squeaky noises he makes are, get this, bus air brake sounds. and for specific buses, apparently. who knew? i just heard squeaking and pishing sounds. but apparently he adjusts the noise depending on which bus he mimics. we also got to hear about his new school and the program sounds wonderful. his first year will be self-contained regardless of whether or not that's what he's slated for. this is to help him adjust to the new school and so on. then he may get mainstreamed into specific classes, like p.e., art, and a few other things. they focus a lot on vocation skills, so he'll actually be helping in the kitchen and stuff like that. his particular class will be all boys, which may be a good thing since he's apparently starting to notice girls...sorta. what they're wearing, anyway. there's also a chance he may go horseback riding! we haven't mentioned this to him. he tends to hang onto statements like that like a steal trap and repeatedly ask about it every day. since it's not a sure thing, we'll just keep it quiet for now.
the week before that, i finally went to an obgyn for my bleeding issues. he did an endometrial biopsy, had blood drawn, and made me schedule a mammogram and an ultrasound. he also put me on progesterone to stop my current bout of bleeding. which it did, sorta. now that i'm almost done and have tapered down to a pill a day, the spotting is back. i suspect once i take my last pill (tomorrow), i'll be back in full force. which is depressing. we'll see. he is doing all this to try to get to the bottom of the problem and correct it so there is no problem, so that's a good thing. as for me, i suspect my body just hasn't a clue what it's doing any more. i've been whacked out for a long time, and it's just getting wackier. and that ultrasound is going to be something. last time i went in for one, i got yelled at for not having a full enough bladder. well, here's the problem: as i've gotten older, it's become harder to hold it. when this old body says "go, now" i damn well better go now, dammit. and usually i don't have much when i have to go now. so, um, yea, ultrasound? not going to be fun. they won't be happy, i won't be happy, and body will be REALLY unhappy and uncooperative.
i'll need to make an appointment with a regular doctor soon as well. i'm having more problem with my headaches, i can barely climb half a dozen steps, and i'm pretty sure a lot of these problems are tying into my untreated high blood pressure. i've been trying not to rock the insurance boat, but now i have no choice. i can't live this way. i'm not asking to be able to do marathons or anything, but i would like to be able to climb half a dozen small stairs so i can go to the rest room without being totally winded by the time i get there! ridiculous.
and on top of all this stuff, the editing thing has also been busy. i'm now the acquisitions editor in addition to senior editor as our original a.e. decided her heart just wasn't in it as much as she thought. she wants lp to be a success, but she wasn't thrilled with the job so much. she let go of her zine after she brought it over to lp as well. not sure that was the best bet since the zine is now over a month late due to personal issues for the publisher and total lack of contact from the new editor hired to handle it. this doesn't look good for us, and it has a few of us staff concerned, but we're trying to keep on top of things even if the publisher is a little distracted right now (and legitimately so -- there's risks involved that he must deal with to keep himself and his daughter safe, risks that were not going on when he opened lilley). in the meantime, i've brought a new editor in and have started her training and scaled back my own editing work. fortunately, the slush pile has been on the quiet side, so the transition has gone smoothly rather than me trying to juggle way too much stuff as i make changes to accommodate the new job title. the good of all this is a higher royalty percent for me on every book. our first release date is in august, and we have 3 books slated for it. one of those books may get pulled since i handed it over to the trainee, but, by the same token, we may also end up adding another book if it gets done in time. i expect the slush pile will grow once the first releases are out.
i've been wanting to do more linkware stuff, but just haven't snuck in the time for it -- with everything going on above, my leftover time, such as it is, is dedicated to my own writing. i'm scooting along nicely with a.c., but am pretty much ignoring my short work and most my other writing projects. i think about them, even look at them occasionally, but i'm pushing against a deadline for a.c. and, self-imposed or not, it's definitely giving me a kick in the pants to get this round of revisions done.
i have managed some reading. i actually read my first manga: with the light volumes 1 and 2 -- it wasn't even that hard adjusting to reading "backwards". with the light is about a japanese family with a boy who is diagnosed as autistic. and, yes, the japanese part does need to be mentioned, because many of the issues they have are definitely cultural. for example, every school, to my knowledge, in the u.s. has classrooms for the disabled. apparently that's not the case in japan. so there are cultural differences in the way autism is managed and in how the family is treated. but a lot of it is the same. the story simplifies autism to a degree, but it doesn't hurt the story or reduce the information it shares. i need to get the reviews up in my booklog, but for now i'll say i'm very impressed. :) vol. 3 comes out in september and i can hardly wait! no word on whether there will be a vol. 4, but so far the 2 books have only gone through elementary school, so i can't imagine vol. 3 can cover everything else up to adulthood. we shall see.
finally, received my contributor copy of voices of autism. i love it! it's beautiful, well put together, and packed. get your copy! that's an order! ;)
so, yea, things have been busy, and it looks like it'll only get busier this summer. we already have 7 dates with appointments and other activities noted on the upcoming board. and that doesn't even include the extra cooking/baking froggy and i will be doing to have prepared bento items to make bento packing even easier for me! even so, i'll try to keep up better than i have been. really. of course, try is the operative word there. in 3 days, i may be lucky to have a brain intact. as much as i love my kids, they do bite into what i need to be doing. with all that other stuff coming up as well...well, yea, crazy busy is about right and updates may continue to be more scattered than i'd like.
for now, the last kid is going out to meet his bus, so it's time for me to catch the second half of my sleep.
~*~
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
