it's been a long couple of weeks. there's been a lot going on, not so much in actual activity as much as in impact. i probably won't even manage to remember it all.
first, the sick has been making rounds. froggy still has a nasty cough. i'm giving her another couple of days, then i'll probably take her in to urgent care to see what's up. she's pretty much otherwise recovered, as far as i can tell, but a persistent cough isn't a good thing to have hanging around either. she tends to do this too -- get something and get well with everything except the cough. anyway, taz seems to have caught the edge of it all and is already getting over it (took froggy over a week), and saxy is finally clearing up after his week with it. it seems to have skated by me or didn't hit me as hard, not sure which -- either of which makes me damn lucky since the lung shite can trigger the asthma. i've been down for the week with the nastiest headache i've had in a long time, but didn't get hit with the congestion and cough, so i'm not sure it was even the same thing. for all i know it was a combination of sinus infection and storm headaches. i did sleep a lot though, so who knows. we've got the soups and cold remedies in case it decides to make another round anyway.
really, if they are sick, keep the kids home. i've actually been told my attitude about this is wrong, even for high schoolers, but i don't care. sending sick kids to school condemns everyone they come into contact with and their families to come down with their disease. it's inconsiderate and can even risk lives. this sick has had a lung component and i'm asthmatic. shite like this can kill me, so you will not convince me that the only time to keep a kid home is if they have a fever and are throwing up. some highly contagious diseases don't display either symptom.
but i think i've ranted about this in the past. it will forever be my one pet peeve.
(and before anyone sends me more email about how wrong i am, don't -- they will be deleted unread and unresponded to. it's all been said to me before, so just leave it alone. we'll just have to agree to disagree. and since i have health issues that can be triggered by the crud the kids bring home and this is my journal, i have the right to rant as i want.)
i also had a run in with whatever it was that swelled me up soon after we arrived in georgia. something bit/stung me on my arm, shoulder, and knee (twice, right next to each other). they swelled, though not as bad as the previous time. i waited to see how bad they would get and they didn't get bad, per se, but they also didn't get better after a few days, so i finally went to urgent care. now, until arriving in georgia, i've never been allergic to bugs, but apparently i am now. doctor gave me some stuff to fight the allergy and told me to keep icing the bites to help with the itching. took nearly a week for it to finally get better, and even now you can see these dark patches on my knee where the stings were. i have no idea what it was that got me -- i assumed it was a mosquito, killed it and tossed it without looking. guess next time i better look so we can figure out what it is i'm allergic to, but here's hoping it's at least another 4 years before this happens again. :P
financially we've been managing thanks to a lot of people. saxy's folks helped with the rent and a few other things this month, a friend of mine has been sending care packages of food and things, the ex has added a bit to the child support he's been giving, and another friend has given us ferret food. a few people even put in to keep the domain that houses the dii elist and sent extra to help us out as well. we've cut back on groceries as far as we can for the moment, and i'm working with the utilities as best i can. i can't do much with our gas bill at the moment -- not until we finish the current payment plan, and at&t tends to be a putz regardless, but i've been working with the others and making minimal payments. when things finally settle, we'll have some huge bills to deal with, but hopefully nothing will get cut off in the meantime. between all the bits of help and cutting back as we can, we're managing and hoping that "managing" won't be the best we can do for much longer.
saxy started working a temp driving job last week -- temp as in he fills in when others have to be gone. he's already worked 3 days and, as far as we can tell, earned about $300, and it looks like he'll be working all next week as well. the guy he's been working with wants him to come on full time permanent -- he's been that impressed with saxy's work ethic. for now it's all under the table, which bothers me a little. this is money we should report, but we can't because they won't be and we don't want to screw up his chance at a job by being too conscientious about it. honestly, there are some things about the business that bother me, but from what i've seen, it just may be a difference in the way california small businesses operate versus the way georgia small businesses operate because i've seen it the same kinds of things in saxy's construction work. regardless, at least he's working, and for temp work, at least he's working steadily at the moment. we're still applying for food stamps and tanf, just in case.
to do that, saxy applied for unemployment (because they will ask him to do that if he hasn't, so we just went ahead and did it before hand). we expected him to be denied, but that's not quite what happened. he got approved, but because the money he earned in construction wasn't reported except in 1099's at the end of the year, he got a payout of... $0.00. approval with a whole lot of nothing. still, at least we have a paper that says he applied and won't be getting anything, it just seemed kind of silly to approve him for nothing. :P
we did have a bit of a scare this past week. froggy was walking home when some older man she didn't know took chase. she did exactly what she was told to do: ran for where she knew adults were waiting, screaming the whole time. i was napping when she came into the house screaming, and she about gave me a heart attack. however, she didn't really get a good look at the guy or where he went. taz apparently got a better look at him and was able to help the police a little. as far as i know, the guy wasn't picked up, but he's also not made another appearance near the girl's bus stop. the only weird thing about it is that apparently no one else saw the guy. she has 2 others who drop off with her -- not sure if they were out with the crud or what, and, from what she said, taz's bus driver saw her so went ahead and dropped off taz and left. i can't imagine she'd come in screaming just because, or would lie about this, it just seems odd no one else was around for it. anyway, she is home safe and hasn't been bothered since. maybe her being a screaming kid has this guy deciding it would be in his best interest to stay away from her stop from now on. i just hope he's caught before some other poor child is targeted.
the scary thing is that i know at least one pedophile lives near here somewhere. the problem with georgia is the way the schools and housing is set up -- it would be very hard to keep a pedophile away from all children, so all we can do is try to keep an eye on things and make sure the kids know things like run and scream. i did tell her next time to try to remember where he came from and get better details about what he looked like, but i'll take unobservant and safe than to her trying to get all the details and getting grabbed any day.
as for me, the editing job has been fairly quiet. we've had a fairly steady pile of slush coming in, though most of it doesn't even make it past acquisitions to the reader panel. finished my last novella, have another one coming in in about a week or so. need to work on the catalogue pages. but that's been pretty much it. my writing continues at a good pace, and i even should have v5 of the novel of doom done in about 3 months. that's been a long time coming -- i actually began to doubt i'd ever get there, but i'm glad to see i'll be moving into the final phases fairly soon. after v5, i have some corrections to make to my world building, which then have to be worked into the novel, plus a few other issues to tweak out, then it goes to beta readers. while with the betas, i'll be working on things like the query letter and synopsis. when it comes back, i deal with any concerns that show up across the board. and then...then i finally start submitting. skeery.
and here's a secret just between us: i'm actually thinking about some of my shorts again. i wouldn't put as much time into marketing the suckers as before: hit the pro markets and the markets i want into, but not much more. it's just too much of a pain and time sink to keep looking beyond that. we'll see what happens. right now i've just been thinking about them, and that doesn't necessarily translate into working on them again. they do provide a nice break from the novel work though, so it's a thought to pick some of them back up. we'll see.
like i said, a lot going on, though most of it isn't really activity of any kind. it's just stuff -- life stuff, money stuff, family stuff, work stuff. it's kind of nice to have work stuff listed in there at all, really, but even without it, there's just been a lot. a lot going on, a lot on my mind...you know, a lot of stuff. i'd like everything to settle back into some kind of routine, with a ft/p job in the mix for the husband, but i know how it goes. we'll hit a little lull somewhere along the way, then get a lot more happening again.
let's just hope it subsides a bit this week. i'd really like to just get some stuff done and not have all this other stuff going on too.
yea, yea, probably too much to hope for, but ya gotta try! ;)
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word of the moment: effervescent
giving off bubbles; used of wines and waters; charged naturally or artificially with carbon dioxide; marked by high spirits or excitement
