Oh my aching gums!

Funny thing about blogs - you tell people they're there and all of a sudden you have to keep up the darn thing... :-)

Just kidding. If you want to read about my boring life, I don't mind typing!

I had to go to the dentist today. Routine 6-month checkup. My dentist has been my dentist since before I had teeth, so we have a good repoire. His office is an hour from home and a half hour from work, so if we didn't, you can bet I wouldn't go there anymore! All the hygienists are great, doesn't matter which one I get.

I'm not a flosser. I just admit this the second I walk in the door. Hi, I'm Karen and I don't floss my teeth. I figure, they're going to notice the second they look in my mouth so I may as well be honest about it!

Well, today my hygienist really gave me a work over. She decided to measure my gums. So I'm laying there as she stabs my gums all over and then sits back to see where they bleed. I was sitting there, joking and laughing with her about it being my "punishment" for not flossing. Seriously, I was doing ok. Then we went on with the usual routine stuff, I saw the dentist, and left.

Got out to my car and proceeded to try to eat my peanut butter sandwich. Oh.my.goodness. That hurt! I thought my teeth were going to fall out of my head! Then I got back to the office and tried to eat my waldorf salad. Apples, nuts, raisins, celery. Yeah. Good choice for dentist day, Karen!

So guess who's flossing from now on? But not tonight! And maybe not tomorrow either - my teeth might fall out!

We'll see how I do after my filling in three weeks...

Confessions of a Forum Junkie

I love forums. I freely admit it. I think I'm up to eight that I visit nearly every day. Some have a frugal living focus. Some have a simple living focus (no, they're not quite the same thing). Some are quite conservative. Some are quite liberal. Some are decidedly Christian in focus, others definitely are not. When forced to go a day without forums, I miss them horribly - these lovely people have become my friends, and it feels foreign to me to be out of contact with them.

I've learned so much from my forums. Some of it has greatly helped my budget (homemade laundry soap, energy and water saving ideas, where to find cheap books), some of it has created greater expenses (Penzey's spices, Intelligentsia coffee, where to find cheap books). But oh my I have fun!

I've made so many new friends, and gotten so many great tips and recipes (oh, the recipes!).

So...to all my forum friends...thank you, you are awesome!

Cranky Days

Ever had one of those days where you want to crawl in a hole and make the world go away? That's me today. So to everyone who asked me to do something today, here's what I have to say:

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Go away and leave me alone.

That is all.

Ask me again tomorrow - I'm sure I'll be back to my usual, pleasant self! :-)

All the pretty colors

Larry and I are undertaking a major house project. Well, he's doing most of the work and I'm admiring it when I get home every night. We're painting the walls and putting new flooring in the living room, hallway, and dining area (which is this totally ambiguous space that's open to the kitchen, but not really a part of it, but not a separate room). It's going to look fabulous when it's finished. I'm taking pictures on my film camera (Gasp! Shock! Yes, I still use a film camera. Larry has a digital but I haven't brought myself into the digital age yet). When they're developed I'll try to upload them here...

Anyway, we're having some adventures. We picked a great shade of yellow for the hallway. Under the compact fluorescent light bulb, it turned a sickly shade of green. So now we have a REAL light bulb in the hallway fixture, because, well, it's SO much easier than having Larry repaint the hall!

We picked a really light, almost ice blue for the living room. We also picked a darker blue to put on some paneling on the lower part of the wall, then discovered that the paneling is just a bit out of our budget at the moment...so that's on hold.

The dining area will be light green. We're getting done with the living room and hall first, then will move all the furniture back to the living room, and do the dining area.

Larry's also going to make new cupboard doors for the kitchen cupboards. Those will be painted dark green and antique white (to pull in the ugly 1980s countertops we're not quite ready to replace yet).

My house is going to look SO GOOD when it's done! Now, if we could only fast forward to finishing day... :-)

Nanowrimo

I'm going to write a novel. In 30 days. Call me crazy! I've signed up with www.nanowrimo.org. Write a novel in 30 days, just to say you've done it. 50,000 words. 175 pages. How hard can it be? ha, ha, ha, ha!

It's going to be about a woman. A young widow, who sells just about everything she owns, leaves city life behind, and goes to be a cook on a ranch somewhere remote. Should be utterly fascinating, I'm sure. :-)

I'll be kicking off bright and early on November 1, wish me luck!

I'm not sure why I feel compelled to do this. Am I bored with no Master's Thesis to procrastinate about? There's nothing hanging over my head at home, no big mental projects to work on. It's almost like school withdrawal. It's a little scary. I write some at work, but not anything big or fulfilling. I almost always have some kind of story floating around in my head. If I write it down, will it leave me? When I'm done, will I share it? Or will it be a private journey, a piece of myself too precious to part with?

Who will be my characters? I know someone who wrote a book, and based the characters on people she knew. Are people flattered by that, or do they look at the flaws in the character and wonder if the author sees those flaws in themselves?

Will my story have a plot? Will I screw it up? Long, long ago, I wrote a short story about a guy in a wheelchair. Halfway through the story he got up to answer the door. I forgot he was in a wheelchair. Oops! It's the careless mistakes that will get you every time, I suppose...

Well. It'll be a project, that's for sure. We'll see how I do!