Finally!

The last weekend of summer break. Bev, a friend with 4 kids ranging in age from 6 to 17, says that if the kids don't return to school darned soon, her head will explode.

I agree.

This last 2 months have been some of the longest in the history of the world. The collision of bad weather, me not feeling well, and kid problems has been just exhausting. The whole conference and registration process has been streamlined and is quite simple. Expensive, but simple. DS3 is only $70 currently. SS, because he isn't taking academics but "hobby" classes, will have a whole crapper full of extra charges. At least $20 extra and I suspect there may be as much as $30 possible. That will boost him right up over $100. I don't know where his father will get that much since he ended up having to get That Car out of hock because SS blew his last 3 paychecks on absolutely nothing and the garage was threatening to sell the car. (stupid car has added much stress and disgust to my summer.) damn it anyway.

It has cooled off enough that I can sleep at night without having the air on, which is nice. It sucks to be forced to choose between stifling all night and getting up congested from the a.c. It got so bad that I finally took a fan into the bedroom and turned it on me. Himself has been spending the nights all covered up with blankies while I lay and sweat. Had hoped all this kind of foolish endocrine crap would have been over and done but it evidently isn't.

Yet again, getting up in the morning shaky and "ucky" feeling. That's part of the whole Big M thing, for me at least. It's just darned irritating. The brain fog is worse. Fuzzy thinking is not something I have ever had to deal with, at least not until recently. I hear about it from many women who go through the same thing on a regular basis. It's frustrating, embarrassing, and infuriating, all at the same time.

Moreover, I have to wash my Keens at least once every 3 days or they get to smelling like my buddy E's nails. There's a high "eeewwwww" factor in that, too.

Lil Sis had a hysterectomy a couple of years ago and never had any of this kind of thing happen. Not One Damned Symptom... argh. She never had cramps or bloating or PMS or anything like that in high school, either. double argh. I'm 53 and still get the bloats and the whole thing. triple argh.

One thing that has to be done today is on my list of least favorite things to do: cleaning out the garbage dumpster. Someone keeps putting stuff in it that isn't in a bag or container and it's gotten pretty bad. Will haul it out to the yard and fill it with detergent and water. The scrub it out. (insert barf icon here)

Our bathroom should be cleaned, too. Himself has, after years of sitting, decided to stand to pee. That calls for another *barf* icon. At least the floor and walls are tile so they are not too horribly bad to clean. As opposed to what they were, blue shag carpet and all. Yuck.

The runaway eyebrows that I depilated a while back have returned. I think they're angry. They regrew very fine and I can't get a grip on them with the tweezers. Damn it. It's one of those little annoyances that nag at me like buzzing flies. I suppose I will have to find a different depilatory as I don't want to use that stuff I did before. Wasn't having hormone weirdness going on then and I suspect the stuff would burn my skin if I used it at this time. I have some wax-stuff around here somewhere but don't think that will work since hair has to be about a foot long before the wax will grab it.

The chicken last night was just OK. Not great, just OK. I hadn't used this particular recipe before and, as I was reading through it, it seemed like it wouldn't work out quite right. It didn't. It calls for browning the chicken, sweating the onions, garlic and mushrooms. Deglazing the pan with sherry then adding in heavy cream and chicken broth. Return chicken to pan and simmer until chicken is done. The order of ingredients led me to suspect that, during the simmering process, the cream sauce would be likely to break. It did. Ended up with butter chicken, basically. If the cream wasn't added until the very last minute, after removing the aromatics and chicken from the pan, it is possible that the combination of sherry and broth would have cooked down enough so the sauce wouldn't be runny. I'm not a huge fan of cream sauces, anyway.

Himself has got to get around to fixing my car damned soon. The rear struts will collapse totally if he doesn't get his fanny in gear and then I won't have a vehicle. Can't afford the $1500.00 charge at the Roo garage in Rochester so he is stuck doing it himself. Repairs are complicated by the fact that Giuseppe the Body Man has taken off to Vegas again. So, rather than just putting the car on the lift, Himself will have to put it on jack stands, slide under it and rattle away at the bolts with the air wrench. If he can manage on a day, I'll be surprised. If he doesn't, I will be carless, anyway. *sigh* Rear struts on Roos have a tendency to go out at around 150K miles. This one has well over 170K so it's doing pretty good. He hasn't fixed the car yet because of... ques what? That Car. It's taken over every free moment he's had this summer and, regardless of SS's promises, he's had to do 99% of the work himself. Pisses me off. Yes, it does. Whether I'm justified in being angry? I don't know, but I am. All I can say is that SS doesn't need a car and I do.

Waggy is snoring on the carpet right behind me. Funny dog.