As of 3:30 this afternoon, the god-awful permanent retainer that had been cemented to my six front bottom teeth is finally GONE. 18 god-awful years of that thing sitting slightly crooked on the back of my teeth, just barely visible above one tooth, constantly sitting against my tongue, constantly feeling gross despite carefully brushing it…

IT HAS FINALLY BEEN REMOVED.

Here’s the thing – I didn’t know it was going to be put in there in the first place. Literally NO ONE explained this was going to happen. I went in for what I thought was a checkup on my removable retainer about a week or so after my braces came off (and to check up on the site), and suddenly I’m fitted with this god-awful thing. And the kicker – NO ONE WOULD TELL ME WHY IT WAS IN THERE. No one. I asked my orthodontist. I’ve asked three dentists – not a single person would give me an answer besides “well, it’s there for a reason.”

I never understood what that reason was – it was on the six teeth that had never needed to move. Those six teeth were the ones that were actually STRAIGHT to begin with when I was a kid!

Today Erich and I had mutual appointments to get fillings done. He went first, and when he was in the chair, he asked the dentist if she could consider taking the thing out because it annoyed me all the time. When I got into the chair, she did the filling, and then she mentions it – asks me if I want it out. Oh HELL yes. And a half-hour later, it was reality.

For the first time since I was 12 years old, I have no wires in my mouth. It feels awesome and amazing and incredibly weird. I keep running my tongue over my teeth where the wire should be (because I was constantly worrying at the thing for 18 fucking years) – and there’s nothing there.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(and why yes, my husband has HUGE points to cash in with me now at any time…)

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SO – as a quick(ish) entry, here’s what’s been going on.

The new job is going well. The pace is crazy busy compared to what I was doing, and honestly… I love it. I love having a ton of stuff to do and to just be able to plug away at everything. The hardest thing, I think, has been accepting that that “to-do” list is now always going to carry overnight. I’d be shocked if I am able to leave one night and have everything done. I don’t think it’s honestly possible – there are just too many things to do. So that will take some getting used to. It’s just a different mentality – not a bad one at all. I’m learning a LOT. I think I’m doing well so far. I’m very happy I made the change. But yeah – crazy busy. And the next couple weeks promise to be even more so, due to a big deadline project.

On April 8th, Erich and I drove down to Pennsylvania – to Reading this time – to attend the 90th birthday party for my grandmother. We stayed at my mom’s the first night, due to how late we got to Easton, and then did the rest of the drive to my grandmother’s on Friday morning.

A good portion of my dad’s side of the family was there – and we had a good time. There was a little tension, as I think is just natural with the personalities. But hey, it’s family – there’s always going to be SOMETHING, right? Grandma’s birthday was lovely, and she really does look great for her age. The family homestead, as always, looked beautiful.

Erich, unfortunately, had to be back up in Boston Saturday afternoon, so he hopped the red-eye Amtrak back late Friday night, which got him back in to Providence early Saturday morning.

I stayed the remainder of the weekend, having a wonderful late-night chat with my Uncle Chris and my cousin Allie until nearly 2 a.m. the first night before we finally decided we should get some sleep. We caught up with some of the “here’s what’s going on these days” chat, but then the discussions went to a more depressing topic – my grandmother’s health.

She’s physically doing very well for her age – amazingly, in fact. She moves well, with no cane, and can still kneel and sit down easily on her own – even to the ground. But mentally, she’s struggling – her long-term memory is okay (the further back, the better), but her short-term memory is completely shot. So much so that she forgets something we’d say only about a minute before. There was a lot of repetition over the weekend. There also was a lot of sadness as evidence of things drifting away. She didn’t remember that I was married. She does recognize Erich and knows we’re together, but she still thinks I live in Boston (I haven’t since 2002), and asked a couple times whether I was still in “the apartment I was living in when she visited me” (her visit was in 1997 – I moved out of there in 1999).

The reality is – she needs to stay in her home. There was a push by my dad and my Uncle Ray to try to move her to assisted living a few years ago – that went very poorly and left her extremely upset. Personally, I think that the needs have changed. Routine and familiarity are vital right now, due to her short-term memory loss. She’s lived in that house since the mid-1950s. She knows where things are, she knows where she needs to go. BUT… she needs someone to check on her now. Preferably daily. Just to make sure she’s okay, that her asthma prescriptions are okay, etc. The problem is that no one lives within a quick driving distance from her. I mentioned my concerns to my dad, and my Uncle Chris and I are definitely in agreement on this.

I worry about her. I honestly wish that I lived closer.

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but it looked intriguing, and so I went onto Diary-X and I started an online journal. And then I started meeting a few people online – one who would become my Maid of Honor in my wedding, one who would become her husband, a couple others who I shared stories of life and geekiness and general fun mayhem with – and I started to come out of my shell a little bit.

From time to time, the writing has lagged off or it’s become little snippets of random nothingness, but I keep coming back to the thing. Nine years of my life are saved on internet diary pages. Scary to think that the following things have happened after I started my online journal:

- Met Erich
- Found a cat (Fizzy)
- Moved in with Erich
- Got a car (via Mom)
- Got into an accident in said car
- Found strength to stand up to my dad
- Found another cat (Gus)
- Met most of my current friend circle within my sorority
- Attended Ivanna’s wedding in NJ
- Attended Melinda’s wedding in San Diego
- Attended Tone’s wedding in Mass.
- Experienced the first death in the family during my lifetime
- Won NaNoWriMo… twice.
- Got engaged
- Bought a house
- Found two MORE cats (Noby & Elly)
- Attended to weddings in the Bahamas, Newport, and Southeastern Mass
- Landed a new job
- Adopted by one final cat (Hoodz)
- Supported Erich when his mom died
- Got married
- Attended two weddings in one weekend (Purk and Erich’s Dad)
- Went to the UK (the day after the two wedding weekend) for an amazing two weeks
- Attended Michelle’s wedding in Chicago
- Bought my first car

Nothing happens in my life. Ever.

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So far, it’s been a good weekend all around. I did a bunch of stitching yesterday – working through three projects on my rotation for 2 hrs each. Spring Queen continues to be the very doomed piece – I had to give it a preliminary bath already for some dirt on the stitches. I must have had a loose pencil in my backpack, and on very light yellow… yeah, instant dinge. Ick. Thankfully all came out. The piece is dry, and I can start stitching on it again next time it comes up in the rotation. I’ll get photos up when I update for the Olympics tomorrow evening.

On other news that I’ve been chomping on all week (and panicking about) – it’s probably one of the few times in my life that I was very, very happy to see my period arrive. Erich and I had a bit too much fun about 2 weeks ago, and yes – while married, no… we’re not in a situation where we really are set for kids. That night, however – well… yeah. So anyway, my brain the next day started doing some math, and then I started swearing profusely. It’s not been a good couple weeks of worry. I’m very relieved that we’re not looking at a baby in 9 months. SO GLAD.

Not that the biological clock isn’t still ticking, mind – but Erich and I need to take care of a couple of things right now that really, really would cause problems had we been pregnant. And I sure as hell was not thrilled with the idea of handling a pregnancy whilst this obese.

I could do without the cramps today, though. ;P

Anyway… break over. Off to get some more work done.

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Another birthday has come and gone – I’m 35. Oddly, this one does feel different, although I’m not quite sure how to describe it.

Work’s fine. The pace has been uneven, but that’s to be expected in the new year. I’m still stressed about the things that normally stress me, but overall… work’s just fine.

I started on some fanfic early in the month, but I’ve been distracted by all of the other stuff going on in my life. Erich has some gaming dates with the guys in the next few weeks, though – so I may reserve some of my time to just tinker. No idea where it will lead. I’m not putting any expectations on myself other than to scribble some scenes and see if anything takes me anywhere. I’m debating posting draft scenes under a friends’ lock on LiveJournal for feedback… any thoughts?

I’ve been doing a decent amount of stitching, too. As part of “Guilt Free January” over on The Wagon, I’ve started two pieces so far this month: Legends of the Dragons and Astrology Sampler. I’ll post pics this weekend on them. I’ve debated starting one more piece for Guilt Free January to throw some variety into my rotations the rest of this year… I’m mulling over starting Spring Queen by Mirabilia or Witchy Washy by Raise the Roof. Not sure yet… but I probably will get something else underway in the next week or so.

I haven’t, to my surprise, been playing a lot of World of Warcraft. Erich tossed the Guild Leader tag on me earlier this month, and I need to start doing something to salvage the guild in some way. Not sure what yet – it will be a casual setup, but I need to get on the polls I took earlier this month.

That’s it for now – new work just came in, so I need to get offline.

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Stitching is going great since I started. I have two slots left on my rotation once I finish my hours on Floral Bellpull tonight. I may actually finish my rotation before the end of 2009!

Here’s where Floral Bellpull started on November 18th:

I started my rotation during our Cape Cod weekend – but also wound up doing a whole lot of frogging (UGH). I’m not sure whether the problems were all present when I took this photo, but I know for certain that small batch of green stitches close to the middle were misplaced (they were a row too high), and caused a whole mess of alignment problems.

I didn’t feel like I was making a lot of progress on this piece, but looking at this photo versus what I have done now, I realize I really have done a nice amount… and all I’ve been doing are leaves. Lots and lots of green!

So tomorrow morning I’ll post the end-of-rotation photo for this piece before moving onto Apache Wedding Blessing, which was meant for Ivanna’s 1st anniversary. At this point, I’m figuring maybe I should plan for an early 10th anniversary present with the rate it’s stitching! I expect to make some good progress on it, though. I seem to be in a good stitching zone lately, so hopefully I can make a push on it.

South Station in Boston is prepping for the holidays this week. The Nutcracker banners are up in full force, as they are every year. This week the annual electric train display has been going up. In years past, it was done on a weekend so I never got to see the building of it. But this year I’ve been able to get the progress pics.

Here’s Tuesday’s shot as they set the supports up:

The black poles are supports for the plastic clear boards (think hockey rink glass) that will surround the display so people can get right up close to look at things.

Here’s yesterday’s shot, with the ground and the train tracks laid:

They were beginning to put the actual trains and the buildings on the display last night, so I imagine by tonight it will be completed. I’ll take another photo on my way out of town tonight.

Off to work – lots of typing to get done today.

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Thanksgiving cooking went very well yesterday – I have conquered the 27 pound turkey. The leftover pile is terrifying, but oh… it was so good. I’m looking forward to the traditional leftover plate in a little while for lunch. Our Thanksgiving dinner consisted of the turkey, cream cheese mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes & apples, sausage stuffing, rolls, and cranberry/apple/orange slaw. We bought pumpkin and apple pies for dessert. I didn’t make the mustard carrots that were also planned – if we need sides later this weekend, I’ll throw them together.

OM NOM NOM.

So yeah – nice, relaxing Thanksgiving with just the three of us. We have enough food to last us through the weekend, I think.

Hoodsie has become the wild turkey-hunting beast once again this year. He only purrs for turkey. Seriously. So he gets a lot of turkey. We want to hear the cat purr!

The plans to get yardwork done have fallen through for a couple days – we’re up against the lawn pickup deadline now. Providence stops picking up leaf bags in two weeks. So hopefully we’ll be able to get them done before the end of the season. If we’re late, the bags will go into the garage for the winter. *sigh*

The rest of the weekend is in flux. I’m going to get some cards written. I have a couple of stitching things to wrap up. I want to get laundry caught up (including that novel thing that is sock matching). I’m going to get caught up on Masterpiece Theater, some audio/visual stuff, some fanfic reading.

And I do really want to write, but my brain is still foggy.

So yeah – that’s what’s up here. How about you guys?

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Thanksgiving cooking went very well yesterday – I have conquered the 27 pound turkey. The leftover pile is terrifying, but oh… it was so good. I’m looking forward to the traditional leftover plate in a little while for lunch. Our Thanksgiving dinner consisted of the turkey, cream cheese mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes & apples, sausage stuffing, rolls, and cranberry/apple/orange slaw. We bought pumpkin and apple pies for dessert. I didn’t make the mustard carrots that were also planned – if we need sides later this weekend, I’ll throw them together.

OM NOM NOM.

So yeah – nice, relaxing Thanksgiving with just the three of us. We have enough food to last us through the weekend, I think.

Hoodsie has become the wild turkey-hunting beast once again this year. He only purrs for turkey. Seriously. So he gets a lot of turkey. We want to hear the cat purr!

The plans to get yardwork done have fallen through for a couple days – we’re up against the lawn pickup deadline now. Providence stops picking up leaf bags in two weeks. So hopefully we’ll be able to get them done before the end of the season. If we’re late, the bags will go into the garage for the winter. *sigh*

The rest of the weekend is in flux. I’m going to get some cards written. I have a couple of stitching things to wrap up. I want to get laundry caught up (including that novel thing that is sock matching). I’m going to get caught up on Masterpiece Theater, some audio/visual stuff, some fanfic reading.

And I do really want to write, but my brain is still foggy.

So yeah – that’s what’s up here. How about you guys?

CARDS!

I’m going to start writing them today, so if you want one – drop me your address. I have a signup here, but I know people are starting to get insane.

I’ll screen comments to this entry, and unlock ones that aren’t address-related.

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So… if you’d like a card from me, please head over here and enter your info:   I’m planning on sending cards out at the end of November, but I’ll take requests until Christmas if people want them. 

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