I'm still amoung the living - for now
Actually, I'm housebound with pnemonia at the moment, so I thought I'd take a some time to update my journal for those of you who care to know I'm still lurking around my flist and still enjoying your posts. My life, since I last posted has been full of ups and downs in terms of my health, my work, my kids, and my leisure time. Since this is going to get long, I'm going to do you all a favor and put the rest behind a cut-tag.
First of all, my health. For the second time in the past six months, I have run myself down to a nub and have wound up just as sick as I can possibly get because I'm too damn stubborn to say enough is enough and take the time to slow down so I can get well. In December, I caught a cold from my son and kept going until it turned into a flu that came with 101 degree temperature. Thankfully, I was out on vacation between Christmas and New Year's anyway so I didn't really miss any work.
I managed to make it through the Fall just fine, then took a week off at Thanksgiving to re-group and plan my son's birthday, as well as how I was going to deal with Christmas, when I got a notice in the mail saying that I was to report for jury duty on the fifth of December. Crap! Not only did I get called to sit on three cases (two of which lasted a day each), the last case (a nasty sex offender hearing) lasted for a week and a half all the way up to the 22nd of December, three days after I was supposed to be done with jury duty. This would have been fine had I not had to go into work for two or three hours everyday after we were dismissed because of my boss's Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic obligations, and the final planning for the Wind Symphony Carnegie Hall Tour. On top of that I held a birthday party for my son, AND got ready for (and through) Christmas. Which I did before I collapsed and died for a week, doing nothing but dozing on the couch and watching TV.
Yes, I'm stupid like that. I go and go until I can't go anymore so that what started as a sinus infection in late February turned into bronchitis by the end of March and then progessed to pnemonia by the beginning of May. If my doctor had not insisted I get a chest x-ray, last week, I'd still be going to work every day feeling like a zombie, couphing my brains out, dizzy and light-headed every time I moved from my chair, acting like a total bitch to everyone in the office (because I am certainly not one to suffer in silence, lol) until I finally collapsed and wound up in the hospital. As it is, my doctor finally said, "go home or I'll put you there, anyway."
In my defense, we have been scarily busy at work this spring what with the Carnegie Hall Tour that took place in mid-February (for which I have just finished paying the bills as well as catching up with everything that I had to push off to the side while we were getting ready for it) so I really didn't have much choice in whether I worked or not. And, the one day in April that I did take off with a migraine so bad I couldn't drive my car, I got yelled at by my boss because he got behind on some things he was trying to catch up on before he left the country for a couple of weeks. So, he goes to Singapore, and I get pnemonia. Life sucks, sometimes.
But, this winter and spring has not been all bad, by any means. For instance, I got to go to New York for four days to see the Wind Symphony play at Carnegie. It was a fantastic trip. The band never sounded better, we saw two Broadway shows (Rent, and A Light at the Piazza at the Lincoln Center), and ate at Bobbie Flay's (Iron Chef America) restaurant which was right around the corner from our hotel. We stayed at the Sheraton-New York, a lovely hotel on 7th Avenue within walking distance of Carnegie Hall and Central Park, as well as Broadway. I ate like a little piggie at several of the delies on 7th Avenue, and at the Chancellor's reception before the concert (where I got within five feet of Ang Lee, director of Brokeback Mountain, who was there as a guest of the Chancellor's, and who I didn't have the nerve to approach, lol ), as well as Bobbie's. The best part about the whole thing was that my hotel room and flight were free and I got paid for the time! Sometimes, my boss is the coolest guy in the world to work for, I swear. :-) The trip alone was worth all the angst, drama and work of the past year and a half. I was so thrilled that I was allowed to go, even though there really wasn't any reason that I had to be there.
Also, this spring, I got a new computer, because my old one finally gave up the ghost, as well as a lazer printer. I got a really good deal on a Dell from the Computer Center at the University. It came with a 17" flat screen monitor, a three year warranty, and a really cool sound system, all for under $600.00. Go me, hehe! In addition to that, my son got his driver's permit in April. Eeeek! My baby is driving! I was totally freaking out for about a week before and after he got the permit, but I am cool now, mainly because he is turning out to be a much better driver than my daughter started out as. Thank God! I think I would have had a heart attack by now, if he was as bad as her, hehe. She used to give me panic attacks on a regular basis because she had this habit of getting too close to the car in front of her and then stomping on her breaks at the last minute. To this day, I blame her for the fact that underneath my salon color, my hair is totally, and prematurely, gray. :-P
But, she made the Dean's List in her first year of college with a 3.8 GPA. Plus, a poem she wrote was published in her college literary journal, and at least one of her professors is encouraging her to submit her short stories to some professional literary journals. I am so proud of her!
Anyway, all this has barely left me with the time and energy to keep up with you guys on lj. However, I have been printing out lots of stories to read and my files are growing exponentially. I had to buy another bookcase, recently, to house all of the stories I'll want to read again and again. And, it's a good thing I do print out stuff, cause when my computer died I lost all of my bookmarks and folders, including my "stuff to print later" files. It's been hell trying to piece it back together. Especially since I have been branching out to new fandoms in an effort to find long, plotty, fics to keep me entertained during day-long track meets and other son related activities (as well as when I am just to damn sick and tired to sit in front of my computer to read). The boy 15 now, and while he definitely wants me at his activities, he doesn't necessarily want me up close and personal, lol, which leaves me a lot of time on my hands in between his heats. And, frankly, I can only take so much of his classmates parents before I need a little quiet time. :-P
As I said, I have been branching out to other fandoms - namely SGA, Smallville, Highlander, new Harry Potter pairings (Snape/Lupin, Snape/Potter, etc...), Supernatural (both FPS and RPS), RPS, and original fiction when I can find it. :-) I have become a fandom whore, LOL. To that end, I have been friending new journals (mostly newsletters and rec. journals), as well as unfriending some journals that I don't read anymore. In fact, I am seriously thinking about starting over with a new journal under a new name because "ginnylovesspike" isn't me, anymore. I haven't read BtVS or Angel unless
ladycat777 or
wesleysgirl or
janedavitt wrote it, in the past year. In the meantime, I have fallen in love with everything that
scribbulus_ink,
seperis,
telesilla,
helens78, and
heartofslash (just to name a few) are writing. Maybe when I feel a little more energetic, I will get off my duff and do something with this journal. I will definitely let you guys know if I do. :-)
Boy, did this get long again, heh. Aren't you glad I figured out how to do a cut-tag? I keep telling myself that I am going to update this journal more often, cause if I did then each post wouldn't read like a novel and I really want to do some reviews of things I have read and enjoyed but ,as usual, my best laid plans get blown all to hell by real life considerations. In the meantime, I love all of you guys and appreciate your posts, both fictional and personal, which keep me entertained, enlightened, and often moved. You guys rock and I miss interacting with you, terribly. I'll try to do better in the future. Maybe. Hopefully.