As The Mouth Turns

So why is it that getting an abcessed tooth is like being hit in the mouth by a train???  Thursday I was fine.  I went swimming with my neighbor Adriana, and then went to her apartment for lunch.  We watched a DVD:  My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  I’d only seen it once, so that was fun.  During the movie the monsoon started — torrential rain with suitable sound effects and lighting.  Eventually it stopped after an intersection two blocks from here was flooded enough to make the evening news.

Then Friday morning I woke up in agony.  But I thought it was nice that it was Friday; my dentist should be in.  Why would I think such silly thoughts????  No, it took his receptionist all day to get a hold of him, but I was quite clear that I needed antibiotics TODAY.  So finally she found him and I could pick the meds up at around 3 or 3:30, which is really a long way to wait when you’re in that much pain.

I took a variety of things to lessen the pain on Saturday, although if someone offered to amputate my head I would have accepted.  Plus of course all this time I couldn’t eat anything that required chewing!  By Sunday morning I was so hungry for something with flavor (which excludes milky oatmeal and milky rice) that I took some of the pinto beans I’d made previously (make a pot and then put it in a bunch of containers in the freezer) and pureed the things with some chopped garlic (for flavor).  It sounds nasty now, but when you’re really hungry, almost anything will do!

Today is Monday or Tuesday — I’m not really sure.  Monday maybe.  I still feel it, but it doesn’t hurt; it just twinges now.  Not real pain, but I know it’s there.  So I ate stuff that barely required any chewing.  I actually did get some sleep last night though.

Oh, and last night we had another monsoon.  I’m not sure about the water, because I was more concerned with the wind.  It took down the fence between my neighbor and I!  Luckily there’s a short wall there and I had some other stuff there, so it’s just resting at an angle.  I took pics; I’ll try to remember to post them.

Today I went down to the district office to fill out the form for year-round pay, even though I haven’t actually seen a contract yet.  Minor detail.  But once I got back I was exhausted from trying to do too much this morning (two loads of laundry, cleaning and mopping the kitchen, etc.) after not having enough sleep this weekend.  But tomorrow’s another day!

Whining

My mouth hurts!!!!!!!  I have an abcessed tooth.  I called the dentist on Friday after waking up in pain, grateful that at least it was a weekday.  Nevertheless, he’d taken the day off!  So an antibiotic prescription didn’t get called into the pharmacy until after two in the afternoon!  My mouth still hurts, and I feel very whiny.

Sewing With Nancy

Actually, that’s the name of a sewing show I’d watch in Wisconsin. But the point is that the quilt is finished and in the mail.

Was it smooth sailing? Of course not! I had the hardest time getting the backing, batting, and top to align. I didn’t remember it being so hard last time! So I got three sides sewn …………….. wait for it ……………… and realized the pieces were in the wrong order and I had to take it all apart again, tearing out the stitches!!

It also didn’t help that every time I put the thing on the living room floor, a cat ran in from other rooms in the house to lay on it!

Jefferson

You’d think that such a booming metropolis would have a better Google Earth image than it does. Nope. This was the clearest shot I could get. You’ll notice that the rivers are limited and don’t normally cover the entire town!!!!

Looking Good!

Yes, over a week of silence and then a ton of posts!

The top of Betty’s quilt is finished. The problem with living in an apartment is the noise curfew — one can’t just stay up and sew late!

Anyway, I had to decide on the side bars based on what I had enough of and how it looked (as in, I ran out of dark purple and decided to skip the pink print). I’m a little distressed that the quilt isn’t more perfect, but I did my best and I do love how it turned out! Now to attach batting and backing, and then the quilting part!

Stories

Well, stories, poems — whatever. These are (at the moment, anyway) things I already wrote that very few people have read. Some of the stories probably stink. But hey, you get to read them for free!

http://pawnyspen.wordpress.com/

Essays

Essay number two is published (I started it a while ago, so I hope it still makes sense!)

http://eclecticessays.wordpress.com/

Flood Pics

Tanya sent me these. These are roads I drove on all the time!

Fluffy Pics

Catching Up, more or less

I am posting photos as two separate entries.

Donna (my sister) came last weekend. Usually when she’s here she drives (I hate driving!) but it costs so much to get her here, not to mention that she has to be tired from the drive down, that I figured it was the least I could do. So we got in the car to go to my father’s — and the car overheated! I got it to my father’s because I wasn’t going to pull over in the 107 heat in the middle of nowhere on a winding road. I called AAA and they said all they could do was tow it, so I had it towed to Pep Boys. I’m in their computer from my oil change, new timing belt, and flat tire. Since AAA was an hour late and this was Saturday evening/night (by then), they just left the car there for Pep Boys to take care of Monday morning. So I had no car for the weekend, and of course I felt like I failed at … something.

Otherwise it was a nice time, of course. I got out fabric and Donna cut some squares. I did too (some then, some after she left). Her job (and mine) is to pin them together into strips in the design she wants for a quilt. Then next time she comes we’ll sew (making two separate quilts, in case that was confusing). A block quilt is the easiest to make for your first quilt but perhaps harder to design. We’ll see. But we’ll be on the same stages of the quilts together, and that’ll be fun.

Betty’s quilt is moving right along, after a couple of snafus. When Donna came I wanted to make sure that the fabric for Betty’s quilt didn’t get mixed up with the other fabric … so I put it in a safe place. You can imagine the rest. I did eventually find it, though! (The quilt should be mailable by Monday.)

I put the quilt top on the ironing board, folded inside out, while I was sewing the outer framing strips together. Harry was drawn to it like a magnet and promptly plopped himself onto it, and then got mad when I had to move him so I could sew the strips onto the side! He did look cute, though, so I took some pictures before I so cruelly displaced him.

I have very little counter space in my kitchen, and kept thinking I should get a cart. Well, I was looking outside this week at my poor plants, thinking that it’s time to bring them in for the summer since we’re on 3-digit temperatures now. So guess what the plants were sitting on? This cart that Dottie gave me! So I washed the three shelves. The top was weathered since it was an outdoor garden cart for both of us, but I had some upholstery fabric from a bag of fabric Donna bought me once at the thrift store. I put that on the top shelf. The lower shelves now hold my crock pot, toaster oven (meaning my coffee pot can actually go on the counter now), iron, boom box for my iPod, and other misc. appliances. I love it!

I had the PBIS meeting at the school on Monday. Three more are planned! I mentioned that I seemed to be suddenly on a committee and the one in charge of it said she picked me personally! So right now it’s two teachers, the counselor, and the family liaison person. My job before Tuesday is to work on the Character Traits/Character Education piece. I’m looking for my stuff from the workshop I went to the summer of 2006, which I haven’t found yet (but my room is cleaner!).

On the plus side, while I was at the meeting I mentioned that I got this letter saying my benefits were ending at the end of June unless I went Cobra (which is expensive). If I didn’t go Cobra, I’d be uninsured (again!) until October first. But the school called Human Resources and got that straightened out! My contract (I only have a letter of intent) will be voted on this week, and my benefits will continue just like everyone else’s. Whew!

The school district doesn’t have integrity, though, so I’ll still be nervous. I was supposed to get a small pay check yesterday — the stipend for the Avenues training I did right after school was out. They said it’d be on this paycheck. Nope. Not a cent.

I’ve been hearing the flood stories, but couldn’t find pictures. Sue said that pictures just couldn’t do it justice. Tanya sent me some aerial pictures last night that were so … stunning, I dreamed about them!! I remember the flooding of a couple years ago — the street was under water at Jim’s Burger Corner, and the guy next to the river had a whole field under water. That was practically a drought compared to these pictures!