The Dog Days

I'm not really sure when the dog days actually are, I'm pretty sure it's in August, although that month is fairly cool for us, because that's usually when the rains come & the heat backs down. All I really know is that it's been terribly hot all month & I'm really tired of being exhausted and overheated.

Dawn's surgery went really well and she's recovering nicely. They released her the next evening & I drover her to get her prescriptions and then home. I haven't seen her much since then, but I know if she needs me that she'll call. There are other things going on with her right now that she's trying to handle & things going on with me that I'm handling by staying away, but neither of us is angry with the other or anything.

There isn't much to do around here after faire ends, so I'm trying to keep busy. If we were still in Pueblo, there would be quinceanera invitations to read & parties to look forward to, the state fair, the reservoir and a lot more, but we aren't, so I think I'll look at Troy's schedule & plan a camping trip or two. I know I need to get away & I'm sure he does, too.

Keeping it All Paid

We have the second half of our car insurance due next month & I've just about got it all saved up so that it won't hurt our budget to pay it. I need to remember to save it in advance, well before it's due in December, just so we're not sitting there trying to figure out how many payments to split it up into. Honestly, you'd think we'd be used to it by now, it's something we've been paying every 6 months since we got together, but I still never manage to get on top of it in time to keep us from stressing out about it.

Let's see, what else is going on? Dawn's surgery is on the 22nd, so I'll probably be at the hospital all day that day & part of the next, while we're finding out if she gets to come home or not. She's really scared and nervous about it, so I agreed to be there when she woke up & as she needed me through the day. She has a prolapsed uterus & bladder, so she's having a hysterectomy & having her bladder put back into place. I just hope that she will feel better when it's all done, she's been in so much pain over the past few months.

Good Times

The movie last night was good (Hancock). I had no idea what it was about other than there was a superhero that no one liked, so it was all a surprise to me. I had just about everything in it that, to me, makes up a good movie. We all did a lot of laughing, which is always a good sign. We kind of have a tradition, where shortly after Faire, we all go to a movie together. This year it was only Dawn, Dave, Troy & I, but it was fun, nonetheless. It all depends on who has money to go at the time.

Dave will be leaving on Thursday afternoon, so I want to get Troy over there to see him for awhile after he gets off work tonight, since he won't see him again until next year. Dawn & I will take him to Las Vegas in the morning, we'll have lunch & I'll drop him off at the airport.

I plan to be a lot thinner by the next time he sees us, even if I have to start taking Phentermine without a prescription or something similar. I'm done being the fat chick in our group and done feeling terrible all the time.

Yay!

After a lot of confusion and disappointment, my laptop arrived here this afternoon, safe & sound. As of this morning, we were told that it wasn't going to be here until Friday, because it had been sent on a truck to Denver & was on it's way back to Salt Lake City & then on to here. I was pretty angry about it, after all, it was shipped on the 6th & I was getting pretty impatient about the whole thing.

Right now, I'm uploading stuff & charging my battery, so that I can take it out into the living room & spend time with Troy out there. I'm planning to install Guild Wars on it, pretty soon, too, so that when we play, we can talk instead of worrying about having to type all the time.

So, yay! We're going to the movies tonight to see Hancock, I hope it's good.

Just Relaxing

After a very busy faire week, I'm just kind of taking it easy & relaxing this week. It was so hot last week that I rarely felt like eating until we got home at night. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since not eating makes me lose weight & then I look like I've been taking Anoretix, so I'm not complaining. It cooled off very nicely at the end of the week, which would have been great if it hadn't also brought heavy rains & wind.

So, our little faire ended a little bit early, since the vendors decided that clearing off on Saturday afternoon was better than going through what had happened the night before. Believe me, I was right there with them, since I almost lost my entire soap stock in the rain storm on Friday night. We had a pretty good after party & a lot of people attended, which is always a good thing. I'm still waiting for my laptop to get here, it was shipped on the 6th, but isn't due here until today or tomorrow, so we'll see. I did get my mouse & the sleeve I ordered for it & am pretty excited to get it.

Ahhh... Young Love.. errr... Divorce

As most of you know, my best friend's daughter Morgan got pregnant when she was just shy of 17, had her baby, Elyssabeth at 17, got married a few months later at 18. This was last November. She really did nothing but gripe & complain from that day on. If she wasn't complaining about Roger, it was his sister, or his mom or the layout of the house, or whatever she could think of to vent about that day. It got so bad that we automatically started giving her 5 minutes & then would stop her, we just couldn't take it anymore.

About a month ago, she took off for Salt Lake, in their uninsured car with no drivers' license, without telling Roger anything & left the baby, too. She came back a couple of days later & he took her out to his mom's vehicle & drove her to Dawn's house, telling her he wanted a divorce. No one blamed him, at all. There had been a certain degree of cheating on her part & no one is sure how far that went, and she wasn't even trying anymore (I know he's probably considering DNA testing at this point, but is also afraid she isn't his).

He has custody of Beth, she sees the baby every other weekend, but doesn't seem to miss her or even want to have her around. We picked her up a couple of weeks ago & she was soaking wet & filthy when we did. She was also dehydrated, so that diaper had to be on her for awhile. She isn't understanding, in light of this why Roger is asking for full custody of Beth & telling her she is an unfit mother. Did she honestly believe that Beth would just take care of herself while she chatted on the computer?

Getting Closer

Well, I got Dave picked up in Vegas yesterday, and didn't get any of us killed in the traffic, so that's a good thing. I managed to be almost recovered from whatever bug I had on Friday, so I wasn't entirely miserable on the way back & forth. This morning, I finished sewing a set of walls, sewed a canopy & got our key to the faire storage trailers. All I have left to do is one set of walls, which I need to even out before I sew, a chemise and two overskirts for my niece.

I do have a couple of bodices that need repairing, but that can be done while sitting somewhere & BSing, honestly, so I'll take them with me tonight & get them done. We have a plan for setup this year that will help us immensely with tear down, so I'm really hoping that works out for us. One thing I really want to do, for Troy & I is to go & clean our storage unit out after Faire so we can have space to put all of our own personal stuff, like my booth and stuff like that. We have things in there that we haven't used for years, like old exercise equipment, encyclopedia sets that are years, if not decades, out of date. I'm sure there are old toys of the kids, and probably clothes and shoes, too. We could probably actually start using it if we did that.

Too Much on My Mind

There has been too much bad news in the past month. In June, a young man that we've known since he was 10 or 11 died in his sleep. He was only 23. He was an Iraqi Freedom vet & was struggling with PTSD. We were all just stunned & so very saddened by this loss of life. We worked with him for years at the renaissance faire & Troy & I are on the faire board with his parents.

This past Sunday, we found out that a girl we've all known for years, Kilynna Blake, was brutally murdered along with her 2 year old son, Dayan & fiance, Brock Branson. They were the victims of Nicholas Sheley, in his killing spree last week.

Yesterday, I found out that my dad has prostate cancer. His doctor says it's a non-aggressive strain & that he can be cured, that it won't take a lot of chemo to do it & that he'll likely live another 20 years. But. This is my daddy. I'm not ready to face his mortality, not at all.

There are too many things that need to be done & not enough time to do them. I need to find time next week, in all of the faire chaos, to take Rhi to the grocery store & teach her how to get the best buy for her money. They run out of food way too quickly and never seem to have enough to eat.

I'm sick. I need rest, quiet and relaxation, but I don't see myself getting any, not in the next 8 or 9 days, at any rate.

I Hate Waiting

I'm still waiting for my laptop to be shipped. I know when it's scheduled for shipment, but that doesn't make the wait any easier. I remember when we were waiting for our desktops to be shipped last fall. Troy's got here first & mine wasn't scheduled to be shipped for another week, man, was I angry about it. It's pretty funny, really.

My nice ViewSonic monitor got here a couple of days before my actual computer did, which made it even harder. The day it finally arrived wasn't a good one around here, Troy had called me right before it got her to tell me his boss had changed his work schedule after 12 years & that there was nothing we could do about it. I was probably more devastated than I should have been, but I hate feeling out of control in my own life, you know? I didn't even hook my new computer up until the next day, I don't think.

At this point, I'm hoping the laptop will ship when it says it will & not sooner, because we don't want them trying to deliver it during faire next week. That would create all sorts of scheduling hassles, since neither of us can really just leave the park for a day to wait for it.