Lost Word of the Day - Jecorary

jecorary	adj	1684 -1684
of or relating to the liver
The alcoholic's refusal to seek treatment caused him no end of jecorary trouble.

Back in the early 1990s I had a little bit of a drinking problem. I'd start out my day with vodka and wind it down that night with whatever I could get my hands on that contained alcohol. At the time I thought it made me a more awesome person, but all it was doing was killing me - literally. While it wasn't yet affecting my liver, it was worsening my acid reflux. This is bad because I have something called Barrett's esophagus, which according to the Mayo Clinic is defined as:

Barrett's esophagus is a condition in which the cells of your lower esophagus become damaged, usually from repeated exposure to stomach acid. The damage causes changes to the color and composition of the esophagus cells.

There is neither treatment nor cure for this. Pretty much all they can do is monitor my acid reflux and scope my esophagus every couple of years to check for precancerous cells. For the past couple of years since my last scope, I've been self-treating my acid reflux. In a couple of weeks, my doctor plans to scope me to see how that's going. And because I'm now 40, I get the joy of having the other end scoped, too. Yay, for Demerol!

Originally I was looking for a different quote from "Yes, Dear" (one of my favorite sitcoms) to insert here, but A.D.D. kicked in. If you think about it, in a twisted way it's still kind of relevant. In case I'm the only one snickering at the unintentional pun, Jerry Van Dyke is too hysterical not to giggle at, so either way hopefully it gave you cause for chuckling.

So Happy Together

"Alone, we can do so little. Together, we can do so much." ~ Helen Keller

That quote is very true.

Recently I started overbidding on jobs, and giving myself longer deadlines in hopes that new clients would say, "Oh, she's too expensive" or "We want work done faster than that." But no, they just keep hiring me to do more work! Which isn't a bad thing, but still...when I added up all the jobs I had lined up for the next two weeks, the total equaled more than 35,000 written words. And four pieces of art. What the heck was I thinking.

I did not freak out. I stayed calm. And I hired two people that I am using as ghost writers. Because most of the work that I do is just fodder for websites, and more a way to get the attention of a search engine than something that people will read, any decent writer can do it.

The weight that lifted off my shoulders this afternoon was amazing. I'm so relaxed, I don't think I'll have any trouble getting to sleep tonight.

Revisiting the "Two Great Quotes for One Low Price!" Idea

Where words fail, music speaks. (Hans Christian Andersen)

I love this quote. It's so perfect, and obviously a lot of people agree with out, perhaps even without knowing that they agree with it. Just go to YouTube and look at all the people who are posting music to the person they're with, or used to be with, or want to be with in life. Here is a link to one of my favorite local singers who you should go check out directly after reading this blog entry.

I spend my life essentially alone at a computer. That doesn't change. I have the same challenges every day. (Dan Brown)


Boy, can I ever relate to this one. But he's right. I have the same challenges as anyone else. Time management. Remembering to stop working long enough to eat lunch. Not working too late into the night, and taking care of certain things first thing every morning, like checking e-mail and responding to client messages received overnight, that will help plan my day and make it run more smoothly.

But for right now, I'm stepping away from the computer and all work related to it. I'm taking my sons to see The Hunger Games. It's two and a half hours that we can spend together without arguing or bickering. At this point in their teenagehood, I'll take whatever I can get.

"A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow."
- Charlotte Bronte

It's 5:03 A.M. and I've been awake since 6:51 A.M. The plan was to work but upon finding glowing comments from my most recent client, I spent an hour doing absolutely nothing on Facebook. And now I'm too tired to work, so I'm going back to sleep. And I have a hair appointment at 11 A.M. which was scheduled that way on purpose, as the dog has a hair appointment at 10:45 A.M. and I needed to kill some time during her appointment anyway. But for now, it's time to try to settle my mind enough to get at least a short nap. Mmm, naps.

Size Matters

No sillies, I'm not talking about anatomy. I went out yesterday and bought a new laptop! It's beautiful, and the screen is huge. It says the screen is 15.6", but I swear it looks bigger. After working on a 10" netbook for four months this is sheer heaven. It's like going from drinking water to Kool-aide. Or Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands to Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow. It's like...well, you get the point, which is, "Size does matter."

Last night I was able to work on an article for my current client while also playing a video game and listening to Pandora without glitches, bumps, or long pauses to think about whether or not it really wanted to complete the task I requested. Of course, an hour's worth of work took more like four hours due to all the distractions, but lucky for my client I only charge by the project, and never by the hour. Even luckier that he'll never read this because while I'm sure the article I sent him at 1am was fairly error-free, I'm not sure he'd appreciate my not giving this project my full and undivided attention as it so deserves. But I was born to multitask and can hardly focus if there's not at least a little distraction.

Speaking of, time to get back to the current project. It's 8am on a Sunday morning. I feel like total crap, like I'm in the beginning stages of a really bad sinus infection or strep throat, and I'm still super excited about my job. That's because writing is the best job ever. Le sigh. I love grammar so much. Hope the rest of you are having an awesome weekend!

And More Words

Tonight I finished up my second writing job, and put bids out for two more. It's pretty incredible that people are paying me to write for them. One of my favorite things to do is use correct grammar and spelling, so being paid to do something I really love is a level of awesome like I've never known. And yes, I know I sound like I should be wearing Buddy Holly glasses and a pocket protector, but I don't care. It's sheer awesomeness.

And now, for something less nerdy, and a little scary, and probably somewhat amusing.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love my dog. Gingerbelle is my best friend. She saved my life. She is the best listener ever, and she loves to cuddle and watch chick flicks. And as if that weren't cool enough, she has this badass fifth leg and her face looks all wonky from where she fused with her own twin in the womb. I've never met anyone who doesn't like her. And if they say they don't then they're big, fat liars.

More than anything, Gingerbelle loves to ride in the car. Mine has been in the shop for four weeks, but she found a way to get one anyway. You see, tonight Gingerbelle ran away. This not only frightened me, but it also kind of ticked me off. Here is a dog that has an easier life than most humans will ever know, and she runs away to the neighbor's house.

Why would she run away? Because this afternoon she heard me on the phone talking about my car. Being a dog and selectively having a vocabulary that's pretty limited to about eight words (bed, down, potty, bath, cookie, NO!, ride, and car) she misunderstood the conversation completely. Gingerbelle couldn't grasp, "Mommy doesn't have the car. The car is gone. We cannot go for a ride in the car." What she heard was something like this:

"Mommy car. Car. Go ride car."

So while I cooked dinner, my oldest walked Gideon, my husband's chocolate lab. He then let Gingerbelle outside. She typically runs to the edge of the woods, does her thing, and comes right back. But tonight, after ten minutes, she still wasn't home. I walked onto the front porch and was screaming my lungs out when I saw the neighbor's car slowly back out of their driveway and creep down the street towards our house. When my neighbor opened her car door there sat Gingerbelle with a huge smile on her face. And she gave me this snotty look that said, "YAY! Gingerbelle go ride car!"

Usually when my husband, a firefighter, works a 24-hour shift the dog and I retire to my room after dinner where we watch television while the boys play video games. Tonight I watched alone, as Gingerbelle was grounded and had to stay upstairs with the boys for four hours. At the end of her restriction, she leaped from the hallway and onto my bed. For a 46-pound golden retriever with scoliosis and hip issues, that was no small feat. She apologized by whining and cuddling against me, and is snoring at the foot of the bed as I type.

So that's how Gingerbelle got her beloved car ride despite the fact that mine has been in the shop for four weeks. Smartass dog.