Category: This & That

Life Can Be A PITN

Literally.

I put my neck out on Friday. No, I wasn’t bungee-jumping or doing gymnastics or painting the ceilings. I was, um, waking up.

I turned my head too quickly the wrong way, and pop, ouch, squeal. There I was, not even out of bed yet and down for the count.

Luckily, I had my bi-monthly (that does mean twice a month, doesn’t it?) massage therapy appointment scheduled for the afternoon. I quickly put in a call for a chiro appointment. The chiro couldn’t even move my neck, although he gave me a nice adjustment of a trouble spot that had been plaguing me since Wednesday and which probably led to the neck trouble. The massage was great, but did more for my back than my neck, because my life is also a PITA.

Literally.

I’ve been walking like a duck since childhood (or like a ballet dancer, take your pick). Then in high school I hurt my right knee in a production of Oklahoma! (I know, weird, right? Let’s just say it involved a wagon wheel back stage and a cast member who was taking “Break a Leg” too literally). Since The Knee Incident, I’ve been slightly hobbled, and apparently it’s affected my gait. Factor in a major car accident when Youngest Son was 11 months old, and an abusive need to (try and) run Allie McBeagle two or three times a week…well, my gimpy right knee/right hip means my massage therapist needs to take care of my PITA every couple weeks, too.

Over the weekend, the neck has relaxed some. But it’s still not great. If I would just lie in front of the TV for three days, all would be fine. Or so my mother tells me. Apparently, back in the day, when you put out your back or your neck, you rested for three days, and voila! you got fixed.

Now we’re too busy to rest for three whole long days. At least I am. If I could convince myself not to do any activities that exacerbate my problem, I might not keep finding myself in pain. But that would mean not using the computer, not writing, not painting the house when it needs it, not walking and running the dog, etc., etc. It would mean sitting there like a lump. Not for me.

Desconstructing Halloween

I read on another author’s blog last week that she has an intense dislike for Halloween. Say what? All that candy? Haunted houses? Fireworks? What’s not to like?

I guess it depends. My Liege and I used to host big Halloween parties—adults only, no kidlets. We started doing this before we had kids and we continued for a few years afterward. Then the kids started getting too old to foist off on a grandmother while we partied the night away. Plus, the wood floor in my living room was damaged from too much dancing in high heels (not just me). After I had it refinished, I couldn’t bear to put it through the torture again. And did I mention the work of hosting these parties?

But they were fun. They also created an extremely busy month. Especially after we had the kids and I needed to create not only costumes for My Liege and me, but for the boys. I had it in my head that I needed to create homemade costumes, which I did for several years. Every once in a while, I bought a costume. One year, My Liege wore a cow costume. Youngest Son dug it out for this year’s Halloween. He went to work as a Holy Cow by wearing his cross and a priest collar over the cow costume. I thought that was ingenious! (Which begs the question, why didn’t I think of it?). You could also do this as a couple costume by having one person dress up as the cow and the other as a nun or a priest.

Now that the kids are grown, Halloween isn’t anywhere near as hectic for me as it used to be. I don’t carve pumpkins. I have glow-in-the-dark pumpkins that (to me) work just as well. One runs on batteries and the other plugs in. And I don’t have to worry about anyone smashing them and creating a mess in my driveway.

We live on a large corner lot on a not-very-busy street, so sometimes I need to bribe trick-or-treaters. How do I do this? Candy! At one point Halloween night, I was giving away 6 pieces of candy per kid. I made sure to tell them how many were going into their bags, too. I mean, I bought 300 pieces. I couldn’t be expected to eat them all myself! And I expect those 6-pieces-per to bring me plenty of repeat trick-or-treaters next year.

It was a warm Halloween this year. Trick-or-treating winds down pretty early in my next of the woods, because our local volunteer fire department puts on a fireworks show on the beach that rivals the Canada Day fireworks around town. My Liege and I used to take the kids down there every year. Now we go ourselves. The first year without the kids felt a little sad. One year we stayed home and watched the fireworks from the deck. It’s not the same! Another year we watched them from a viewpoint on the road. Not the same again! Nothing beats standing on the beach with other members of your community while hot chocolate gets handed out (if you stand in line) and a bonfire is blazing, and gorgeous fireworks are filling the night sky.

Any Halloween traditions you want to share? How do you celebrate where you live? Do you like/abhor Halloween?

What Weekend?

My last two or three weekends have been so busy, it’s almost felt like I haven’t had weekends at all. Know what I mean? Being sick throughout one of those weekends didn’t help—all the work I’d intended to accomplish then was postponed. The good news is I think (hope?) I’m finally caught up.

Last Thursday and Friday I glommed researching universities for Youngest Son for next year. I always get waaaaaaaaayyyy too caught up in research, whether it’s for writing or another purpose. But it had to be done. Then, a lot of bookkeeping (5 months’ worth…I’ve been procrastinating) for myself, plus helping someone else set up books for a new business (not that I’m much help, but I had to be there). By the time Sunday rolled around, I was sooooo ready for pizza with pepperoni, feta cheese and black olives (yum!), hot wings, and hours of TV. Now that I’ve overdosed on Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters, The Amazing Race, Dexter, and the finale for So You Think You Can Dance Canada, I’m feeling refreshed! Can’t beat the idiot box for releasing stress.

A girl named Tara-Jean won SYTYCD. I was rooting for her—and also the runner-up, Vincent (say it with a French Canadian accent), a very talented 20-year-old. Also, Saturday night, My Liege and I watched a couple of movies on the DVR. I fell asleep during “his” movie, then both of us enjoyed Renee Zellwegger and Harry Connick Jr. in NEW IN TOWN. Classic romantic comedy. When it was done, My Liege said, “Now I know why you like these kinds of movies. They make you feel good.” Yep. Well stated, My Liege.

How was your weekend? Do you ever feel like you can never accomplish enough on the weekends? Or are you one of that special breed of people who actually uses weekends to relax?

I have great plans to relax next weekend—and not because illness is forcing me to. Nope, I have nothing more stressful on my calendar than handing out Halloween candy and watching fireworks over a glittering lake while I stand on the beach with my husband and a steaming mug of hot chocolate.

Fonciful

I’m obsessed with fonts. One of the reasons I could never be a professional web designer is that I waste (um, invest?) hours and hours of time searching for just the right font for a site. I love fonts! Can you imagine how my obsession would reflect on an hourly-basis invoice? I’d have to charge a flat rate for font research.

Of course, I might not be as obsessive about choosing fonts for other people. Choosing for myself, though…it’s a sickness.

I can’t begin to describe how many fonts I browsed for my site re-design (accomplished in May 2008 or thereabouts). I narrowed down to about 20 over a period of 6 hours or so of browsing and testing (not kidding), then narrowed down again from there. I think I remember choosing my Cindy Procter-King name font from a short-short-short list of 3. I wound up buying 3-5 fonts and then kept playing with them until I made my decision.

One of the fonts I didn’t choose for this site, I wound up using on Penny’s site. But my work doesn’t stop there. Because I often like to have a secondary, complementary font (the font on my buttons, for instance). Choosing one font is bad enough. Choosing two = triple the obsession.

I’ve yet to use two of the fonts I purchased when I redesigned this site and built Penny’s. But I don’t mind. Sometimes I go into my Fonts folder and gaze at them longingly, spinning new web designs around them in my mind.

My favorite site for buying fonts is My Fonts (no, they didn’t pay or ask me to say this). The site is easy to navigate, and once you choose a font to test you can type your name or other wording into a window, click, then see what the font might look like on your site. Easy-peasy!

At Fontifier, you can upload a sample of your handwriting and create your own personalized font! I haven’t tried this myself. I have crappy handwriting and know better than to unleash it on the world. It’s the fault of the elementary school I attended. For reasons that are not clear to me, they decided not to teach a few grades of us cursive writing. Instead, we learned “script.” I do believe an exchange teacher from Australia foisted this experiment upon us. “Script” was supposed to look like beautiful calligraphy, but in the hands of 8- and 9-year-olds, it looks like printing with checkmarks on the end (serifs). The result was that, even as a teenager, I didn’t know how to write. I printed. I still mainly print (when I want someone to be able to read what I’m writing). And I’m all over the map. I do two different types of E’s (capital and lower case), depending on my mood. Same with S’s. And F’s (lower case only).

I did have to teach myself to cursive write when I opened a bank account as a teen and they wanted a signature. I remember going with a friend who “signed” her name like straight up and down printing with tick marks at the end of each letter—at the age of 15. Not for me!

I have the worst signature in the world. YOU try signing Cindy Procter-King over and over and over and over and see what it winds up looking like.

I could be a doctor.

I blame my two summers as a meter maid. I learned to sign Cindy Procter without really looking at the pad (I was too busy darting the glares of annoyed drivers).

I blame my children. Eldest Son was such a rambunctious toddler that I didn’t dare take my eyes off him while signing checks in the grocery store or the bank (young mothers don’t realize how easy they have it with debit cards—no signing!). So my cursive handwriting grew worse and worse.

Dare I say I’m the only one who can read it? (Curiously, my critique partners blame me).

If anyone tries the Fontifier, let me know how it turns out.

(Yes, I do believe they began teaching cursive writing at my elementary school again after I left…fat lot of good it did me).

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

I couldn’t resist posting this:

Eldest Son is coming home for Thanksgiving tomorrow morning, and My Liege is taking Friday off work, so you won’t find me around the blog until Tuesday or so. Monday is a holiday, and Sunday is our Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’.

An American on one of my writing lists asked about the differences between Canadian and American Thanksgiving a few weeks ago. Sorry to disappoint, but the holiday is pretty much the same as it is in the U.S….except it’s celebrated several weeks earlier. Why? I dunno, it’s a holiday, let’s eat!

We’ll be having ham, roast turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts and no doubt another casserole or two. And pumpkin pie for dessert.

Yum. Aren’t you sad you have to wait?