Day: March 30, 2006

I am fatigued today and I’m not sure why. I much prefer feeling energetic. The good news is that I got some stuff done despite the fatigue. All of it was necessary and some of it I really didn’t want to do, but did it anyway.

The day started with an attempted bloodletting. Every year my physician holds my synthyroid prescription hostage pending lab tests. I understand why he does it, but I don’t like the annoyance of getting my blood drawn. Sometimes blood draws are quick and painless, today was not one of those days. The nurse spent a full 8 minutes checking both arms, both hands, and both wrists trying to determine where a puncturable vein might be hiding. She attempted an elbow puncture. Then she fetched another nurse. Nurse #2 spent several minutes looking for a puncturable vein. She attempted a back-of-the-hand puncture. Then she sent me home to drink lots of water, eat some food, warm up, and come back when all of that was done. The return trip later in the afternoon was much more productive. Now the lab has a vial full of my blood to test. Whee.

Gleek is sick with a fever today. She has spent most of the day lying on couches. Anytime Gleek just lays around all day I know she really doesn’t feel well. So today has been a day of snuggles. I even rented a movie for her. Barbie Mermaidia. I’m not a big fan of Barbie. I don’t like the body image promoted or the importance placed on fashion. The point of a barbie doll is to change her clothes. Lots. If my girls need an action figure to play with, I much prefer my girls to be playing with polly pockets. Polly has the same emphasis on fashion, but not the body image issues. Also Polly is much smaller and easier to store. However those clever matel people have figured out a way to sneak barbie into my home. They have been releasing fairytale videos starring barbie. I love fairytales. I could pretend that my love of fairytales is based on an academic study of folkloric themes, but actually my interest in folklore was a result of my love of fairytales. I love fairytales enough that I’m willing to watch versions that feature barbie. Some of them I don’t care for, but Rapunzel I enjoyed a lot. The barbie fairytopia series does nothing for me, but Gleek’s eyes light up for them and since she’s the sick one, I let her preferrences choose the rental.

Perhaps someday soon I’ll borrow copies of Fairytale Theater from our local library and show them to my kids. I loved watching those when I was Kiki’s age. Those are good fairytale retellings with no barbie and no comedic-relief sidekick characters added. Unfortunately there is a high probability that they’ll completely fail to enjoy the shows. They were bored stiff by Back to the Future which for them was not a delightful clash of old and new, but rather a confusing mix of old and older. Maybe I’ll just read some fairytales aloud instead.

Howard swapped email with our printer this morning. We’re now expecting the press match for Schlock Book 1 to arrive on Monday morning. It’s nice to have a fixed date for that. We’ve been watching hopefully for the Fed Ex truck for two days. Now I can relax over this weekend and pick up the stress on Monday. Then I can resume wavering between the fear that we won’t sell enough books and the fear that we’ll sell so many books that I’ll be buried under mailing lists and packaging materials.

This weekend I intend to sew. I have mending that needs to be done and I’ve promised Kiki that I’ll sew her a new dress. We even made a special trip out last Saturday to buy fabric for it. I don’t usually buy fabric new, I usually find it at garage sales or thrift stores and then base my plans on what I find, but I just haven’t been able to find anything that suited Kiki. It has been several years since Kiki had a really nice new dress, so we went shopping and let her pick what she wanted. Then I applied coupons to bring the cost to a reasonable level. Now I just need to get it cut out and sewn.

I seem to have typed myself into a more energetic mood. I should probably use it to go make dinner.