My husband just took off to his grandmother's viewing in Richmond. He had on a suit and tie. I haven't seen him dressed like that in quite some time. I have to say he was absolutely smoking hot.

His latest incision is healing well. He had skin cancer on the back of his neck and instead of using the Mohs surgery, they just took a big chunk out of his neck. Evil black stitches about an inch and a half long. It's lumpy and crooked and promises to be a nice scar. I call it his zipper. I just got a call from his doctor to confirm his appt on Friday. They'll be taking out his stitches. I sure hope this is the end of it.

Marcella, my husband's grandmother, died this morning in her sleep. Her health had been declining ever since her son had a stroke. She developed alzheimers and seemed "stuck" in the time immediately following his stroke. She was under a great deal of stress with what seemed like the same day unfolding again and again. She had to sell her house and move into an assisted living residence. Even though she had friends who lived in the same building she rarely spent time with them since everything revolved around her stricken son. Later she was moved to a different community and hated every day of it. Everytime we visited she thought she had just moved there and that her son had had the stroke only a month or so before when in fact it had been years. Jim and Alex saw her at Christmas and she didn't know who they were. It must have been pure hell to be trapped in time like that. I hope she is at peace now.

Damn. I'm exhausted. I'm cranky. I'm paranoid. I feel like people are avoiding me. I can't take these pills anymore. I'd rather be lucid and in pain than bumping into the walls. I went out today. I wanted to go to the library to pick up a book I had on order. I had to pull over halfway there to make sure I was in the right gear. Seriously. I had to pull the manual out of the glove box and check. I've only been driving that truck for nine years or so. Then I nearly fell asleep on the way and got rather nauseated in the library. I can barely keep my eyes open now but I wanted to address my feelings. I don't know if I've said things to drive anyone away. I hope I didn't.

So, here I sit in front of my semi-trustworthy laptop with the space heater happily churning out blessed warmth around my ankles which are about the colour of toasted marshmallows right before they burst into flames. My tea is somewhat palatable for having been reheated in the microwave about three times already. And I've got a bar of soap tucked into my left sock.

WTF? you say. For real...tea isn't bad from the microwave. Not like coffee which tends to get a bit chewy after awhile. Or, maybe you meant the soap. My doctor mumbled something about it in passing the other day while pressing another prescription into my palm for symptoms relating to Restless Leg Syndrome. She also said Lupus several times but I'll go with the soap. I like the sound of it better. At first I was thinking "what a frikken wingnut" but then I decided to google it. I've heard of more bizarre old wives' tales and this one seemed pretty benign. The thing is to slip a bar of soap between your fitted sheet and mattress at the foot of your bed to quiet the urge to move your legs during sleep or while attempting to sleep. There were quite a few testimonials on it's efficacy.

The clonazepam that the doctor prescribed hasn't dulled the pain in my legs yet but it certainly has dulled my senses. I'm a drooling shadow of my former self. But now with the word IVORY imprinted on my calf...in mirror image of course. But hey. It's worth a shot. What's the worst that can happen? That I have a clean spot on my leg? That my husband makes fun of me for the rest of my life? If it stops the pain I'll Laugh aloud with him.

I am so disappointed in myself. Two years ago I started a project. I knew I could do it and I convinced my husband I could do it. And for the most part I did do it. But I ran out of steam and began to doubt my abilities.

The shower in the master bedroom was leaking when we bought the house. We did a quick "bandaid" type fix until I felt sufficiently well read on the subject. Demolition uncovered some questionable framing. I had to rebuild it from the subfloor on up....from scratch. I poured and presloped the concrete base. Installed the liner. Framed and built the curb, poured the floor, hung the concrete backerboard, taped and tiled the three walls within three courses of the ceiling, and tiled the shower floor. My measurements were precise and few cuts had to be made. I had three tiles that I wasn't able to cut myself since I only have a snap cutter. I started to tile the curb and that's when the doubt hit me. I was almost home! Three more courses of tile to the ceiling and completion of the curb. Cake and Pie. But what if I did it wrong? The impasse was huge! It loomed the height of the shower itself. It wasn't perfect. I couldn't go forward through the fear and doubt so the shower sat unfinished. No better than the previous shower since neither could be used.

Finally, in shame, I agreed to let my husband hire a professional tiler to finish the job. He's late again this morning...the fourth day of a two-day job which promises to stretch into next week as well. Not because my work was bad. It wasn't. You can tell where I stopped tiling and he started. He wasn't as careful with his lines as I was. He failed to check the surface plane as well. My bad. I should have done those last three courses. It would have taken no time at all. It was just hard work since it was way over my head and really put a strain on my back. The same with the curb. There were no fancy cuts there. I had already presloped the curb so the only thing left was to lay the tile.

The only thing left to do is to grout it and seal it. So, here I sit waiting for a contractor when I have the knowledge and ability to do it myself but lacked the confidence and therefore the motivation to finish it myself.

I'm so disappointed.

*That was written a couple of days ago. The job was finished today. There are a few places I need to touch up on the grout but otherwise it is done. All that is left is for me to spackle the ceiling, prime it and paint it, attach the fixtures in the shower stall, and add some trim around the outside course of tile to hide the cut edges. After that I'll need to tile the floor, tile the countertop, and paint the walls. I promise you it will not take two flipping years!
A photo will be added later.

Today is a perfect day for perusing cook books and heating the kitchen from the warmth of the oven. It's cold out. Freezing. I mixed up two batches of cookie dough yesterday and they have chilled sufficiantly. The first batch is pfeffernuesse made with Brer Rabbit real-honest-to-goodness blackstrap molasses and freshly ground black pepper. I imagine they'll turn out to be real gobstoppers but they'll be tasty.

The other batch is lemon-poppy seed melts except I used orange zest instead of lemon. I tend to use orange zest in just about everything I bake. I even use it in the soap that I make. What can I say? I like oranges. I have a pan bubbling away on the back burner right now with dried orange and tangerine peels, a crushed cinnamon stick, and a pinch of nutmeg. I keep adding water to it throughout the day and the aroma permeates the house. It smells absolutely wonderful. Makes me think of Christmas year round. *sigh*

Tomorrow is my dd's birthday. She'll be all of nine years old but is so much wiser than her years (cough cough). We already had an over-frosted birthday cake at the party at Brunetti's on Sunday so I'm going to make her some super sticky cinnamon rolls. I made them once before when she was about four years old and she still remembers them. So, of course, I was making my way through my cookbooks trying to find the recipe and got lost in thought. You know how it is. You pause to read a recipe and think "Oooo, that sounds good!" French Baguettes, Pane Casereccio, Pizza Quattro Formaggi. Mmmmmm.... All except the Pizza Quattro Stagioni. Nuh. I had that in Florence. Not good. Definitely not a fan of the artichoke. I'm the same with seed catalogues....so easily distracted.

The cinnamon orange concoction on the stove has me incredibly hungry. The cookbooks added to that as well. There's only one thing to do. Bake!

How did that happen? What a serendipitous series of events! The neighbour decided not to take his grandchild to the store so my kid is over there playing with her and won't be home until dark. Dh just left for a football party at his friend's house and won't be home until late. I won't need to cook supper tonight. It'll just be me and the kidlet and the wonderful leftovers from last night's stirfry.

I've got cookie dough all chilled and ready to slice and bake. I've got a nice pot of tea brewing. The cats are asleep and not fighting. The washing machine is winding down on the spin cycle. Now all I hear is the hum of the space heater at my feet. Pinch me! This can't be Saturday! I won't have to listen to sports on the tv all night. I won't have a ton of dishes to wash. Maybe when my hellion daughter gets home we'll build her gingerbread house. Or have some hot chocolate and watch The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. A girls' night in. She'll love it.

After she goes to bed I can curl up in front of the fireplace and read some of Kathy Reichs' novel, Deadly Decisions. I had planned on doing more laundry but serenity like this must not be squandered. Who knows when I'll have this kind of quiet bliss again? Tomorrow I will be hip deep in dh's family. His mom got everyone in the family tickets for a play at Barksdale Theater to be followed by dinner at Brunetti's. A little voice in the back of my brain is screaming INTERVENTION for some bizarre reason. I can feel myself tensing up already. By tomorrow noon I'll be a full body white knuckle. But tonight, ahhh tonight....

While waiting for the schoolbus this morning, my daughter and I spied a couple of squirrels in a tree. One ran down a limb and deftly jumped to the other tree, snagging a tiny twig, and continuing on as though it hadn't risked it's life in that leap.

I nudged my daughter and said, "Here comes the other one". The other squirrel hopped along the limb gracefully but stopped to break off a twig. It then turned around and carried the twig back up the tree to a crook in the trunk. It tried to weave the twig into the chaotic mass that was already there but only succeeded in causing a handful to rain down to the ground. Half of it's work was now in a heap at the base of the tree. The squirrel hopped off a few feet, paused to scratch the back of it's arm, and then began worrying another twig.

I wondered if the squirrel felt any frustration when the nest collapsed. It certainly didn't wallow in it's failure. It simply got back to work. I waved to my daughter as her bus pulled out of sight down the block and walked back home thinking about the squirrel. Why couldn't I just let the twigs fall and get back to work? Why does everything need to be perfect and why do I take it so personally when I fail? A simple tile job takes two years because I'm afraid I may have made a mistake? My paintings remain unfinished because I'm afraid I'll ruin them? My website is a hopeless jumble of links that don't work, mismatched colours, and dreary content...

I just need to sit back, scratch a bit, and then get on with it. Let the twigs fall where they may!