September 15, 2009

8:08 a.m.

Dark Hair, and Random Bleary Thoughts

Here I sit, bleary-eyed and half asleep. Waiting for the coffee to brew. I could so fall back to sleep here in my green swivel rocky chair. Night sweats again. I went off the pill; I wonder if that�s why the perimenopausal symptoms are worse suddenly. Hate waking up drenched.

I managed to color my hair last night and that�s about it. I�ve gone darker, hoping to approximate my actual, natural hair color so I can just stop coloring it. I have not seen more than 5/8� of my actual, natural hair color in so many years I�m not sure how close I got. Anyway it�s dark now, all right. Kind of nondescriptly dark blond, not all that interesting, but neither is my real color. I wonder if people will notice.

I ate all this peanut butter after dinner, with chocolate chips and a frozen banana. I went briefly insane because there isn�t any dessert in the house and I dug around for the only sweet thing I could find. This morning I feel really bloated. I can pretty much say that THAT excursion wasn�t worth it.

I struggle with the sugar thing.

Chimney Guy called yesterday to ask if we could meet tonight instead; he was running really behind. I said it was fine. I was so tired, concerned I wouldn�t make prudent decisions anyway. Should I get an estimate and references from Scraggly Beard too? Somebody decide for me.

Oh GOD, I want to go back to sleep.

If I get up later, will I be less sleepy in the morning and therefore faster at getting ready for work?

Doubt it.

Must� have� coffee�

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Crazy dreams. Cannot remember them but they were situations tough to get through. As much as I hated hearing the alarm, I was glad to be relieved of those obligations.

My alarm clock plays the theme from Wallace & Gromit�s �The Wrong Trousers.� It�s cute. It�s also very loud when one no longer wears earplugs or uses a white noise machine. What I�d really love to get is one of those triangular Zen clocks that rings a tone chime, first softly, then a minute later a bit louder, and so on. That would be a sweet way to wake up, rather than this marching band. But they�re over $100, and that�s not in the budget yet.

Coffee is going in�

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Marc said when Pearl went to close the chicken coop night before last, she saw what looked like a black dog running away into the woods. It was the coyote, we surmise. He was hanging around the coop. Not good. Right now I think the solution will be to close the coop door earlier; they go inside to roost before it gets dark but Pearl hasn�t usually gone out to secure things until she goes to bed. No more; we don�t want to lose any of our ladies (or guys). Nobody wants to arbitrarily shoot a coyote if it hasn�t done anything yet. So we�ll try to be preventative.

The chickens, meanwhile, are fabulous, big, friendly, cute and amusing. There�s an old wooden bench in the yard, the park-bench kind with the back, and they like to sit all over that. On the seat and perched on the top rail of the back. It�s funny to see a dozen of them crowded all over it. Another month or two and we�ll start getting eggs!

And Marc says he hasn�t seen a bug in the back yard for weeks.

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I wonder if I can get myself around finishing the ceiling primer tonight. I really need to move forward. Boy, when this house is in order, what will I do with myself?

Work is very busy right now. I�m refurbishing some speakers, which means taking the circuit boards out and putting them in new boxes, or spiffing up the old boxes (oh dear, I actually wrote �spiffing�), hot-gluing them together, testing them to make sure all channels work. Sometimes removing goo with Goo Gone, which is stinky and messy. My work station looks like a bomb site. But I�m busy, and I just found out we might get an order for 400 units of a certain microphone assembly. Four hundred units!!!! I might be able to work 5 days a week for a while. Money!!!!! Mortgage!!!!

I think I might stop wearing makeup to work. I�m kind of sorry I set that precedent. But maybe with the new hair I�ll just revise my look altogether. Jeans every day, no makeup, streamline getting out the door. Yesterday I had ironed a nice white blouse and was trying to get out the door when I dropped the mascara wand. Smudged the blouse. Cursed a lot. The smudges washed out but then I had to iron it dry so I could wear it, and I managed to ever so lightly singe one place by holding the iron too long on it. It�s not so noticeable (just like that first light mark on a marshmallow) but I wonder if I could whiten it again with OxyClean. Anyone have experience with such things?

I would love to spend the rest of the morning with you all, but I really must get up and have some breakfast. It will not include peanut butter. I look out the window; light is just now starting to creep into the world.

(Post-note: On the way out, I was briefly delayed by the beautiful sight of a young deer in the meadow. Mama must have been in the woods nearby. What a lovely morning gift.)