Frustrated and Frazzled

Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness. ~Richard Carlson

Was on pretty much a dead run all day yesterday and, for whatever reason, didn't handle it with my usual aplomb. Spent the day feeling frazzled and frustrated -- AND, I didn't get to blog-hop again. I miss reading your stuff. I hate that. Still, today is a new day, so will do my best to move through it with grace and composure. *G*

I borrowed the first season of Eureka from the library yesterday. I can't wait to watch it -- last week's show reminded me how much things have changed in the past years, so it'll be fun to return to the beginning.

DD and I decided not to volunteer at the library officially -- they require a work schedule, which I understand, but right now I'm still trying to wrap my brain around everything we're already doing and the thought of having something specific scheduled again was more than I could handle. Instead, we're adopting shelves, which means we make sure they're in proper order, that the books are in good shape (and send them for repair if they aren't), and check for series that aren't marked on the spine. As we get the shelves we chose yesterday organized, we'll adopt more. So, we're still helping -- just not in a truly official capacity, and we can show up every week when we can.

It's getting into the 40s at night now, so I have to think about taking down my veggie garden. Might do that over the weekend... we'll see. The tomatoes are about done anyway, but I might leave the cucumbers and squash until it officially freezes. Ugh... don't want to think about winter.

And that's life in my neck of the woods. I am going to try desperately to catch up with y'all today. Hope to see you then!

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You Are Low Key and Relaxed

You are a energetic, warm, optimistic person. You approach everything with a lot of enthusiasm. When you are happiest, you are calm. You appreciate tradition and family. You enjoy feeling cozy. You tend to be afraid of change. You are never ready for things to be different. You find love to be the most comforting thing in the world. You feel at peace when you're with your loved ones. Your ideal day is active and full. You like to keep busy with your favorite things, and you appreciate a routine. You are very impatient. You spend more time waiting for something than actually enjoying it.

The Autumn Test

Except for the title and the first paragraph, it's pretty close... lol...

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Romance and Marriage

Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate. ~Barnett R. Brickner

A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time. ~Anne Taylor Fleming

So, I have a writing friend who has a short romance story nearly completed that involves a married couple as a H/H. They're childhood sweethearts, married for nearly a decade and now on the verge of divorce. The wife has moved out and filed, because she has cause to believe her husband was cheating. The story is about how they overcome the trust issues and learn to love each other again.

Her first choice of romance publisher (the one she's contracted with on another story) doesn't contract stories with married couples as the protagonists. They don't feel that a married H/H is "romance". Romance should be (loosely):

Boy meets girl.
Boy loses girl.
Boy gets girl back.

And with married couples you don't have the "boy meets girl" component.

While I agree that much of the fun of a romance is seeing how they meet and slowly fall in love, I wonder if watching a couple remember why they fell in love to begin with isn't just as romantic? OTOH, married couples aren't something you see often in romance novels (aside from Eve and Roarke ... but their books are more suspense than typical romance), so maybe this publisher has a point.

I'm on the fence. What think you?

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DD loves her new curriculum. She loves the format, and is enjoying school. On Tuesday, after breakfast I was going to take the dog for a walk, and couldn't find DD. Then I heard singing ("My Country, 'tis of Thee") and discovered she'd headed up to the school room and started school without being asked!

I hope it keeps up. Having her excited about school is awesome.

I haven't been able to get in touch with either 4H leader that I wanted. I've called and left messages, but haven't gotten a call back. **sigh** I'll try again today, and then if I don't hear back, I'm calling their "headquarters" and ask what else I should do.

We're enrolling in art lessons today. I hope she enjoys them. And, we'll be heading to the library to pick up our volunteer forms and do that (and, yes, I'm volunteering with her ... might as well, since I'll be there anyway).

When she's older, we'll probably start volunteering at the nearby animal shelter instead. We tried that a couple of years ago, and they let her be with me, but she couldn't DO anything so it was no fun. She has to be thirteen, so we'll hit them up again in a few years.

Do you volunteer anywhere?

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What's Happening in My Neck o' the Woods

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. ~Elwyn Brooks White

School went well yesterday -- DD really enjoyed the new curriculum and set up. It's going to take some getting used to for me, though, as it takes pretty much all day to do and we've been terribly spoiled the past few years with having lots of time during the day to do other things.

Today on my list of things to do: I just discovered that a local 4-H club does dog agility! So, I'm going to contact them and find out if I can get DD involved. I'm also trying to find a sewing class for both of us to go to. Our local Y doesn't have their fall schedule up yet, so not sure what I'm going to do for phys. ed. yet. I am enrolling her in homeschool art classes at the local art museum. And, we're going to both volunteer one day a week at the library.

Whew.

I'm tired already.

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Because I know you've been unable to sleep over worrying about Dakota and her digestive problems... I thought I'd let you know that she responded to treatment very nicely. A special thanks to Anne-Katherine who reminded me about using pumpkin -- it was one of those things I knew, but had forgotten.

We're in the midst of transitioning Dakota off her "bland" diet and back onto regular food. I'm keeping the slippery elm and probiotics up while we do so and so far, she's doing fine. I hope this will be the end of it. It's a good thing she's so cute, because she is VERY high maintenance.

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In other news, I received a call from Sears yesterday -- the part for my washer? Is out of stock and they don't have an estimated date when it WILL be in stock. But, hey, they'll touch base with me every 48 hours to keep me updated until they figure out when it will be in stock.

It's lovely that they're so concerned, but their phone calls do get my laundry clean. I am NOT a happy camper.

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