So I haven't posted in a while, and I know I've lost touch with you all.

This is because I am apparently insane, moreso than we already knew. However, I don't feel like life sucks quite as much as it did. LOL!

I've gone back to school. Yes, I am aware that I still teach school... But losing the security of one half of my job pretty much made me realize I needed to progress in some way, or I was going to wind up asking drive-through customers if they wanted fries with that.

So I am in the throes of both teaching philosophy -- yeppers, haven't lost the job yet, and as it turns out might or might not -- and studying mathematics. So far no major crises, just a lot of work. Hey, pursuing a probable pipe dream at least means not having to pay back my student loans. I wish I had a chip in my head with direct access to everything ever written... I wanna know and do too much, and life is so short!

But hey, I also just got a new car, so I can't say much. Although it was borne of necessity and the money is always a worry, I lurvs my new (used, new for me) 2005 Ford Taurus... I mean, I don't have to get in on the passenger's side and then crawl over to the driver's side anymore because all the doors on my new car work! And I don't have to worry about the messed-up exhaust system heating up the gas tank and 'sploding or asphyxiating me. Or the engine finally konking out...

So, I'm still here. And hmpf was wonderfully kind to remind me of vidding by giving me a great rec for the first Farscape vid I ever made. Time files... geez, it's 2009. I was 12 years old yesterday -- where'd it go??!?

I sooooooooo love a good pun!!


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Doing research just now and came across this quote that I like particularly well...

"Vain is the word of a philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man. For just as there is no profit in medicine if it does not expel the diseases of the body, so there is no profit in philosophy either, if it does not expel the suffering of the mind."
-- Epicurus (341–270 BCE)

I'm overwhelmed. As crappy as I felt last night, right now I am choked up with emotion. I can't believe Obama won. I am overwhelmed and proud of my country for the first time in a very long time.

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Iz up nao wit plaig agin. Sigh. But lookit wormhole, Scapers!! :D


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I tell you, Teh Kittehs have an ongoing conspiracy whose only goal is to drive their hoomins utterly mad! ;)


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I mean, really. It's not like my remaining ovary said, "Y'know, I'm kinda tired. I'm goin out for a smoke. See ya in five."

It hasn't PAUSED. It has STOPPED. It has ceased to be. It is an EX-OVARY.

Yep. The surgeon left it in there with the hope that all would be well, but it looks like, gentlebeings, I am in surgically induced meno"pause".

* Night sweats
* Hot flashes
* Body aches
* Recurrent nightmares (yep, this is actually a menopause "symptom")
* Brain fog/memory problems
* Water weight
* Sore boobies
* Other sources of physical discomfort that are of Teh Kind That Shall Not Be Named.

Gah. I'm taking a soy-based supplement that has helped with the brain fog, sore boobies, and water weight gain, but these recurrent nightmares are really starting to bug me. I'm tired from and tired of waking up most mornings from some disturbing, upsetting, or downright bizarre skeery nightmare. A keeps saying I should "give it more time," but... I think the obvious is pretty obvious. :P

The ever-mysterious THEY say that the nightmares are a result of higher cortisol levels. Not like I wasn't a walking ball of stress BEFORE this. LOL!

Good news, at least, is that I'm healing quite well and my surgeon cut me loose (no pun intended ;D), as long as I listen to my body and don't overdo it for another few months. I'm back to normal in the exercise department and I'm overjoyed that I will never again need Kotex or Tampax. YAY!

Thus ends my daily TMI report. Hehe.

Just in case you were wondering about, y'know, the Large Hadron Collider and The End of The World. It's been fun, everybody. ;)

I await the startup of said Large Hadron Collider in the never-ending search for the elusive boson particle and The Meaning of Life, The Universe, and Everything. And if the Earth gets swallowed up by a black hole, I'll make sure I have my towel before I hitch a just-in-time ride with Arthur Dent.

And if someone can explain to me why my iPod headphones are picking up, very faintly, a radio station on the left side when I plug them into my computer speakers... well then, it was all worth it after all. What's a little death and destruction in the name of science? And that radio station is damned annoying.

Heh.

Oh, the melodrama!!1!!11



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I have decided that I spend too much time on this journal complaining. Therefore, here are ten things I am happy about at the moment and in no particular order of importance:

1. Still being employed. Hehe! (That one comes up right away since I'm in the midst of getting ready for tomorrow's classes.)
2. A. In sum total. ♥ ♥ ♥
3. My sunflowers -- a few at least -- survived and are blooming!! One is even almost as tall as I am. Wow! I should post a picture.
4. Recovering from surgery. Things were rocky for a little while and will be different, but I'm almost back to my old self in many ways.
5. NO MORE PERIODS!!!!! EVAH!!!!! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
6. My kitties and ferretsies, who are if not all totally healthy, at least currently stable. :) And I lurvs them.
7. Being able to pay all our bills, at least for the moment.
8. Having fandom to cheer me up. I am loving re-watching Farscape, and I just finished watching Serenity again, sitting here with A whilst working on my laptop...
9. LOLcats. Sometimes they just make my day.
10. Having found a way to relax in gardening and landscaping, of all the weird things. I can dig in the dirt and listen to my iPod and I'm happy in the moment. Weird. :)

So, happies to you all!

For those of you wondering what the heck the FML is, it's the "ferret mailing list," a long-standing community of some of the most ferret-knowledgeable and VIP people around as far as rescues/shelters, veterinary work and knowledge, and general info go. I'm a member of the FML, though I very rarely post (and I'm certainly no VIP, LOL!).

We who lurvs our mustelids tend to have a great interest in other related mustelids as well, such as Mustela nigripes, the black-footed ferret, an extremely endangered animal.

Most of us have been watching the National Zoo's "ferret-cam" with rapt attention since Georgia, the female with the cam in her nest box, became pregnant and gave birth to a kit on June 20.

GO HERE: http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/NorthAmerica/default.cfm?cam=BFF to see Georgia and the now... 7 week old (?) kit. He's gonna be huge. And he's CUTE ON A STICK.

Now for the spectacular news -- we began referring to him very early on as "Peanut," and someone suggested we gather donations to get the right to name him. Well, we've done so, and he is now officially PEANUT!!!

YAY FOR THE FML!!

This is a true story, and it's been all over the internet, but I wanted to post it here too.

I just have to say that despite the melodramatic song, I was flat out in tears by the end, and I don't mean just a sniffle -- they were the good kind of tears, at least. :)

In our house, this is not necessarily a joke. :p Teh Kittehs rul awl.


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I haven't vidded in months. I have three or four half-finished or barely-begun Farscape vids sitting on some of my myriad hard drives, and I'm... completely paralyzed.

Same with fic. I started a fic that I have a definite plot-line for, even, for the lovely and wonderful ladycallie's Christmas wish list, and I got about 8 pages written, then... stopped. Yeah, way back in December! :p

I'm re-watching the series, and I'm recalling a lot that I had forgotten. Unfortunately I'm only up to PK Tech Girl since I'm watching it on my iPod, so no telling how long it will take...

Augh! I need inspiration! LC needs her fic! I wanna make more vids!

Let's face it. I want more Farscape. Not comics, not webisodes with tangential characters. New, real Farscape. J/A. Shippiness and peril and heroic rescues and bizarre settings and great aliens and...

And there isn't any.

And there is also nothing that even begins to fill that hole for me, and I don't think there ever will be. Farscape has ruined me. Nothing else will ever match up.

Woe.

Okay, so obviously I didn't do too well on this week in the life thing... Unsurprisingly. I did take a few more pix and will post them at some point.

Le sigh. Ennui sets in. Melodrama ensues. *g*

OMG, I've kept this up for three whole days. A is already tired of my photo-snapping. LOL!

1. You must take between 6 and 8 new photographs per day.
2. Your WITL must be consecutive. No skipping days.
3. You must post your photographs at the end of that day, some time after the last picture is taken.
4. Each photograph must have the time taken and a title, with no other explanation.

( Day Three! )