quit work make crafts

...where I am sexy_romulan.

Things I did today:

* Bought and planted a steely blue pyramidal dwarf spruce for the front border that fills its alotted space exactly as beautifully as I had envisioned, both in terms of colour and in balancing the bulk of the miscanthus on the other corner - maybe I'm getting the hang of this design stuff, at least in my own yard! AND it was 35% off - WIN. Here's hoping I don't kill it.
* Noted while planting said spruce that despite my shameful neglect this summer, the October garden is really pretty stunning, with all the foliage acquiring various autumnal tinges. It becomes this altogether symphonic arrangement of blocks of colour.

Things I am going to do tonight:

* Make the last batch of grape jelly
* Hang out in cyberspace with my sisters
* Try one more effing round with the query letter, GOD HELP ME
* Check out the Lanark Cedar website and find out if they have remotely useful hours, such that I can lay hands on some bevel siding (so as to finally finish the trim around the door)
* Clean up the damn kitchen

Things I am going to do tomorrow:

* Marshal my thoughts wrt writing client stuff
* Print out the first 40-odd pp for markup
* Buy salad fixings for lunch instead of shelling out $$$ on takeout
* Make chicken stock w remains in the freezer

Things I am going to do soon:
* Somehow acquire above-mentioned bevel siding
* Trim around door (a weekend afternoon or two, I expect)
* Put concrete toe next to border pavers
* Dig out all the goddamn periwinkle and violets out of the east border

Back to life, back to reality. Was not l33t enough to start the writing blog. Nonetheless, feeling pretty optimistic about things, all told. My sister had a couple of truly excellent suggestions for the next ghost story, so plans for that are in good shape. C'mon November!! Am now bumming around on the train and reading about the super-creepy Winchester Mystery House and checking out Lev Grossman's blog.

Things I need to do:

* Brainstorm creepy incidents for Ghost Story II
* Continue to read stuff for writing client

Rereading old entries I realized that there is now less than a year until all the moneez are ours, precioussss. Well, more like two years, really, because we'll have to dig ourselves out of the debt-pile first before we'll be able to throw any of it around. STILL, movement in that direction will be good! And at this point it's like pshh, a year, whatever, that's no time at all.

All the fun fixy-uppy things I have plans to do given time enough and $$$... like making the laundry room actually pleasant to be in. My thought is that we could put a wall up to make the furnace area a separate space, install ceramic tile and an actual paintable finish on the walls, put up ikea storage cupboards - likewise white, probably - and a bit of counter space, find a nice bright light fixture, get swanky water-and-energy-efficient laundry machines like my mom's got.

And a car that's not an infuriating falling-apart rustbucket with barely adequate infrastructure for carseats would be good too. Ugh. It would be really nice to buy a car that would last more than a couple years before getting to this point.

I really hate working from home. Instead of resolving the tension between home and work it just makes the tug-of-war that much more intense - I can't shelve one set of responsibilities to focus on the other, I just end up juggling them all.

HVAC dude tells us that a/c units like ours were made about 20-30 years ago. Given that NRCan lists the life expectancy of a/c units as "15 years or more", I think I spy another immanent item on the home improvement to-do list.

Well.

After spending most of the weekend with or chez Grandma, Rose zonked out so hard on the way home that she barely woke up when extracted from the car seat and didn't make a peep when I tucked her into bed. So after a fairly free and easy couple of days, I now have the evening off too.

I...don't quite know what to do with myself.

...and she went on, pondering the indifference of a man towards the exigencies that ruled a woman: that someone must be not far from a sleeping child, that one's freedom meant another's unfreedom, unless some ever-changing, moving balance were reached, like the balance of a body moving forward, as she did now, on two legs, first one then the other, in the practice of that remarkable art, walking.

Ursula Le Guin, Tehanu

Mental health day today. So wtf am I going to do with myself such that I don't end up feeling like I've wasted it? Need to stick around the house while insulation guys are doing their thing, otherwise I would go do some soldering. But everything I've been saying I need to get done around the house is so workaday dreary that the prospect of spending a day off on it is just depressing, even though I would probably feel pleasantly accomplished at the end of it.

Tea with amazon_syren this afternoon will be a good start, anyway. ♥ ♥

Maybe I will put on some loud music and clean until the downstairs is fit for tea company, and then knit or something.

Wow, this must be about the saintliest possible response to this particular brand of cognitive dissonance. From this very interesting article that I think I ran into on rabbitica's doula blog.

I was with the doctor I train with doing the initial steps of an intake — an ultrasound to date the pregnancy and a full history.The patient says to the doctor, “I should not be here today. I agree with the people out there.” Gestures out window to street. The people at the bus stop???? “The people who are protesting. I think what you are doing is wrong. I think you should be killed.” Oh. Whoaaaa!

Dr. S does a clinical version of “Werewolf-ing Yourself” which consists of extensively documenting this woman’s ambivalence in the chart, alerting the counseling staff to a patient who would require a lot of support and quickly peacing out of the room before she voiced any of the many justifiable but possibly hurtful words that could come in response to someone looking you in the eye and telling you that you should die for what you do. The only thing that she did say before closing the door was to me, and it was “Your turn!” This is because my secret healthcare superpower is invulnerability to other people’s cognitive dissonance, no matter how profound.

So I told my patient what I truly believe, which is: “I’m so sorry that you feel that way because feeling that way has got to make this an even harder decision than it already is. I imagine it must really feel awful to think that you have to do something that goes against your own beliefs.” (Secret inspiration: my own feelings about the situation!) “I know there is no way you're going to go home feeling you did the absolute right thing no matter what happens today. We are not going to do any procedure until you are absolutely certain that this is what you want. I do not want you to have an abortion. The only that I want you to do is the thing that is most right for you, whether it’s continuing this pregnancy and becoming a parent, or adoption, or abortion.” Then we brought her with her boyfriend to the counselor who talked with them for hours about the spectrum of resources available for not just abortion but adoption and parenting. At my clinic, we joke that we turn away more patients than the protestors do. And although she did end up terminating the pregnancy, the procedure went well, there were no complications, and she told the staff we had been the “most supportive!” I personally thanked her and told her it was an honor to be there for her and still get teary when I think about it. Ice burn, Lila Rose!

More head-shaking/jaw-dropping stories along this line here.

Appointment with the OB today, which was full of surprising information. There is no VBAC ban in force at the QCH - midwives are not allowed to take on new VBAC patients there, but the doctors can, and mine seemed to pretty much take it for granted that this was the safer and preferred option, although if I decided to go for an elective c-section she would sign me up.

So that pretty much changes the landscape completely.

Next step then is to find myself a doula. Even if I'm stuck with caregiver roulette, that should provide some of the continuity and expert support that I wanted. Fired off a few emails on that score this afternoon.

I don't know. Not altogether sure how I feel about this. Equal parts relieved and intimidated. Does that even make sense?