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Damn, I have already had to break my addiction to all three of those. My old age is gonna be boring. ;)

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"What's it gonna do--kill me?"

Right? If she becomes dependent on the relatively low dose they've got her on, the worst that happens is that they have to keep upping the dose. She has a LOT of room to go in that direction, and this is a lady who thinks a glass of wine with dinner is a smidge daring ("Should I have wine? Ooh, maybe just a glass, teehee,") so we're really not in hard-core addict territory here. If she spends a couple of years at the end of her life having to take pain pills to function and stay happy, so be it.

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Let me know if you need any weekend help--I'll drive up and pack boxes by day, casino by night!

@cko, do not tempt me. The move is going to be hard, because moving is hard. I keep trying to remind myself. I may press you into service (although not right now 'cause it looks like it's trying to snow over the pass). ;)

Closing is in approx. 30 days. And then I have to get some renovation done on my current house before we can sell it. This would be easier to plan if I could get a contractor to answer the goddamn phone. Does anyone know a trick? How to find a contractor? So far I have had zero luck.

My parents are still compos mentis and functional, but I can see them aging and I know I've got some caretaking in my future. Mr F's grandma (the 97-year-old who they were going to do surgery on) is doing better. They did NOT do surgery, thank goodness. She's on Vicodin, so yeah, she feels better. Is there worry about creating a dependency? Yeah, but man, she's 97 years old. If she gets hooked on pain meds, does it really matter?

Thanks for all the house vibes. I keep stopping and wondering if it's the right thing to do (it is) and fretting about moving (it'll be fine) and anxiety, wheeeee!!!! :)

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@Darkpool, that was an interesting theory, now I'm going to see if this works. I don't get how @Erratic was able to link to everyone -- that was wacky. @Lisin worked for me yesterday, as did @Harvester. @KittenPokerCheater, do you have notifications turned on?

All righty, let's see what works...

Hmm, the only one that didn't work was indeed the one with the period after it, but that's not completely consistent, since @Erratic did bold for you above even with a period after it. Hmmmm. How about now, @Darkpool.

And how about now, @Darkpool?

Some of the coding there changed itself. Hmmmmmmmmm.

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It worked for me on an iPad. Let's see...@Harvester, will this notify and embolden you?

Our house offer was accepted. I'm a bit gobsmacked. The reality of moving is just...too much. Too big to grasp all at once. Aieeeee!!!

Super good vibes for your stepdad, @KittenPokerCheater. :)

Worked on one and not on the other. Huh.

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Indeed I did! Thanks, @Lisin!

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Everyone's familiar with the cliché of the "Terrible Twos," but I thought three was much, much harder. They are so much more verbally competent than they were when they were two, and so much more stubborn! Mine were, anyway. Good luck, Wonderflonium. It'll get better. Then eventually she'll be a teenager, and then the fun really starts. The F-ster and I are in a weird vibe right now where he takes umbrage at everything I say. "Would you like something to eat?" "What? Why? Do I look hungry? Did I ask for food? Why are you always bugging me about stuff?" SO FUN! :/

I'm very sorry for your loss, LittleVoice.

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Oh harrie, that does sound tough. There was a shooting here in Sparks last year that made national news (kid killed a teacher and himself) and that made me...I don't know, vicariously sad? Sharing in the communal sense of loss? Whatever it is, I think it's a valid response for us to have to tragedy close to us. I hope you're feeling okay. :)

We made the offer. Now to see if he accepts, or if there's a counter (we didn't offer full list price). I had forgotten how absolutely nerve-racking this home-buying dealio is. There is STRESS.

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I'm beginning the sorting, and it is...daunting. We have too much crap. I've got to figure out where to donate all the books I'm getting rid of. Public library? This is a job for Professor Google, I think.

Public library it is! Yay! That's good -- I've got a ton of books to give them. Cool. :)

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We're going to actually write the offer today. I am so anxious, blergh. Thanks for the vibes, everyone. :)

Thinking good thoughts about your FIL, buffyjunkie.

Mya, I would love to do an AtS rewatch (I lurve AtS. I think it is a better show than BtVS) but I kind of have a lot going on. Heh. Books are so frelling annoying to pack. There are never enough small boxes. Never. You go and pick up a great load of boxes, and then they are not sufficient for the task, because SO MANY GODDAMN BOOKS. It's heresy, and I never thought I'd say this, but e-books are the bestest invention ever. They don't take up space and gather dust and weigh a ton. ;)

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State-mandated school tests are coming up next week, and since the F-ster is doing online school, I have received approximately 800 billion email reminders about when and where he needs to go to take the CRT (criterion referenced test, but to me it'll always be cathode ray tube ;) ). Two test days happen at St. Mary's. Huh. That's the hospital where his dad and younger brother were born. Interesting that they have to scramble to find space for the testing to happen.

I think we are going to move house. We've lived here for thirteen years, and to say that we are entrenched would be putting it mildly. But new house! Exciting! (New to me, not actually new. The house we're going to make an offer on was built in 1958.) I keep looking around, thinking about how to pack up. So far I have allowed inertia to win, although I do have one whole box full of books, and almost a bookshelf's-worth of books to give away. Blergh. Anyone wanna come over and help me pack?

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Six weeks? Six? All with you?

What kind of drink can I get you? On the house, 'cause damn.

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I get my hair colored about every 8 weeks. Which ain't cheap, but it's the only girly thing I do for myself, plus I'm just not ready to have as much grey as I do. And I also am a natural redhead who has faded with age, as many of us redheads do (my cousins refuse to believe this, but c'mon. Ain't none of us has the red hair that we used to) and I don't want to give up my color, so I have it done to approximate what used to be my natural color.

harvester, I agree with everyone: thank her nicely, maybe give her something a bit nicer than usual next time, and beyond that, you're not on the hook. The giving of an extravagant gift does not obligate the recipient to return in kind. :)

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Fingers are crossed for good auditions vibes. :)

And KPC, like Erratic said, what about talking to your landlord? If there are tenants who are creating a quality-of-life issue for other tenants, hopefully they'll want to know about it.

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I love Scully+Mulder. I'm not quite as enthusiastic about Anderson+Duchovny (for her sake, mostly. He seems kinda yucky, tbh).

I got about 2 hours of sleep last night. Blergh. But SF was awesome.

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The snow level is at 6000 ft right now. That's about 500 ft higher than my house. I can look straight to the west, toward the Sierra, from the back of my house, and it's just a wall of white. That's not uncommon though, and we're not supposed to get any snow here, so I'm going to be an optimist.

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Is that Donner Summit as in Donner Party? I'd say you made the right call.

Yes indeedy! The Sierra Nevadas are not to be trifled with. I grew up here in Reno, and we all read Ordeal by Hunger in 7th grade, and that book really piles on the dread. But cannibalism may not have happened. It's taken on this legend of its own -- the Donner Party! They all ate each other! But it looks like that's probably not the case. Nevertheless, I sure as hell don't want to get stuck up there. I've done that already. It was not fun. :/

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Thanks, harrie. I just looked at the webcams over the pass, and it is indeed a winter wonderland up there. No thanks. :)

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Ugh, Chyna, I hope it works out.

The forecast over Donner Summit is for snow showers, possible accumulation of a couple of inches. Whee! This is why it's never, ever guaranteed to be an easy trip from here to the Bay Area. Stupid mountains. ;) Let's all cross our fingers and hope that the forecast is correct -- a couple of inches isn't a huge deal, but if it starts accumulating more than that, we'll have to put chains on. Blergh.

Happy weekend, everyone.:)

ETA: aaaand, we've decided not to drive today (a 6-inch accumulation in 50-mph gusts is not so fun). Early am departure tomorrow instead. Hee hee, the weather sure is fun, ain't it?

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Have just come from the Planetarium -- field trip for the F-ster. It was awesome; the universe is really, really big. Like, SO BIG. I know y'all know that, I was just reminded of it in dramatic fashion. ;)

I can also report that all of the 14-year-old boys* were awkward, gangly, and spotty. And every last one of them is unable to see that that kid is just like me!. Ah, adolescence.

*there were no girls present. The students at the online school, from what little I've seen, seem more often to be boys.

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You mean you're not going to spend every waking moment over the next week trying with all your might to complete this project? Because these dillweeds can't calendar, that's your job now? No, you say? Huh. Can't imagine why.

We're going to SF this weekend. First baseball weekend of the summer. :)

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I knew that that was a thing, I just never truly believed that people actually used that. It doesn't seem any easier than just doing the coding, but what do I know? I realize I'm weird and old-ladyish about computers, so yeah. People can make sense of all the squiggly pictures, you say? Huh. Amazing. ;)

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Is there any other way to do it besides hand-coding? Huh.

Seriously, I am computer-backwards, so if this is completely obvious, feel free to point and laugh, but...how else do you get bold and ital and the rest if you don't do the coding?

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I hope you kick major ass, L&b. :)

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I keep forgetting that this weekend is another stupid holiday that requires that I go purchase stuff. Blech. I'll be going to Cost Plus tomorrow (they can keep trying to rebrand themselves as World Market, I'll keep calling them Cost Plus) to get candy from Germany and Japan, I suppose, because that's a tradition that I began years ago. Whyyyyyy did I do that, argh. I'm starting to really hate all the sugar holidays. Let's celebrate X! But how? I know, we'll eat A SHIT-TON OF SUGAR. Yummy. :/

Friday is the F-let's 11th birthday. Amazing.