With my Hubby once more home from the hospital, I'm really hoping that Life™ can get back to some semblence of "Normal" again.

( Nattering and minor venting under the cut )

On other, happier, fronts, daughter Súl has our turkey ordered (organic, cage-free, etc. etc) and will be responsible for buying organic, non-GMO potatoes for mashing. Her food sensitivities have eased, so she can actually have mashed potatoes and dressing (altho I have to limit the herbs I use in the dressing, and she needs to buy the gluten-free bread that I'll make into croutons) and green peas. We've even figured out how to do gravy, and she's gonna be experimenting a bit before The Big Day so we know it will be tasty.

In case I never really blogged about it, Súl suffers from Hashimoto's Syndrome, Adrenal Fatigue and serious food sensitivities. She's been three years being extra-super-picky about "eating clean" and restricting her foods to only the stuff that her doctor tells her she can eat, and she's slowly getting better - more or less. But having meals together takes a bit more planning, as I try to accommodate her sensitivities while still making the food interesting to two insensitive males.

Anyhoo, part of that accommodation this year means no pumpkin pie. She has redone the fancy sensitivity test, which is why so many things are now "legal" for her again, but a few others have fallen into the "let's lay off this stuff for a year or two and see what happens" category - including both pumpkin itself as well as many of the familiar pumpkin pie spices. As a result, I think our Thanksgiving dessert will be individual chocolate "tarts" she found that are positively decadent. I'm looking forward to the meal, actually, and I'm not so hung up on tradition that I'll be crying to have chocolate mint rather than pumpkin pie.

Especially with Hubby home.

Now, to get - and KEEP - both him and Súl healthy....

Have a great day, folks. I know I will.

I know better - I really do - but sometimes my mouth says "yes" when my brain keeps insisting it just keep shut entirely.

( Writing nattering under the cut for those not interested. )

Yay me!!

Well, after a ten-day hiatus to deal with all the associated fun that goes along with a family member trying to kill herself, my Muse has finally cooperated in giving me more word-count for my NaNo attempt.

I sat down with the calculator and figured out how much I'll have to produce everyday to win the 50k word challenge - not that I'm going to actually finish the story. It's do-able: min 3000 words per day, with Sundays off. That includes Thanksgiving Day too. Still, our family doesn't kill itself trying to produce a feast that will leave us groaning on the floor after standing up from the dinner table, so I should be able to write some that day while nursing what's on the stove.

( More nattering under the cut )

And now, so you know I wasn't fooling, my new word-count for the day:

26553 / 50000 words. 53% done!

Have a good evening!

*Once more Aearwen pokes her head out of the sands of lurkerdom*

Evidently a conference at the local Theosophical community of Halcyon was what my writing muse needed to really kick it into gear. After being completely deluged with musical obligations – from piano/organ duets to giving a talk on "Harmony and Spirit" to being the accompanist for a musical review program (which included two pieces of Joplin ragtime played by yours truly) thrown together at the last minute because the play being prepared was woefully behind schedule. Thank the Universe the musical review we had done in August, and we were able to mostly remember what we did and how we did it well enough to be presentable. However, the four-day conference gave me a much-needed respite from all things writing and Internet-related.

Although, to be honest, I'd been writing already - just not in the LOTR fandom...

( More nattering, mostly about writing, under the cut )

Anyway, the sum and substance of this is that my Lizard Council friends will hopefully have something new to chew on from me after nearly six months of silence. And those who have read my DW story at Whofic will hopefully not be left hanging for too very long.

Now, all I need to do is organize my time so I can keep up my piano practicing too - with perhaps a little harp along the way? That isn't too much to hope for, is it?

Yesterday was the twenty-eighth anniversary of my twenty-nineth birthday.

( Nattering under the cut. )

So I'll take Pandë's delightful birthday drawing and print it out so I can frame it and hang it somewhere close to where I keep Lisa's pencil sketch that she did for In The House of Elrond. I'll save all the lovely graphics to my HD so that I can give myself a warm, fuzzy feeling when I peek in next time.

Birthdays are landmarks of sorts. This has been a good one.