Fireworks and multitasking

Neither sleet, nor snow, nor fire, will stop the following:

1. Pick up of trash in our neighborhood. [Oops, forgot to put it out last night. Really didn't think they'd pick it up, considering how close we are to the warning/mandatory evac areas. Figured last night we'd probably get the order to leave.]

2. Gang stabbings. There were several last night on the beach where the fireworks were. Lovely.

Also, you know you can multitask when:
You can sit on the toilet, relieving yourself, and picking burrs off your dog's back when he comes into the bathroom to check on you. ;)

Oh, one more thing: thanks to all of you who have commented on my blog with well-wishes. You guys rock. :)

Addendum Gap Fire Post, July 4th, 11:15pm

Sorry haven't updated you guys... power came back on about a half hour after it pooped out this evening. But I've been running around in circles trying to get more stuff done while I have electricity to do it. And taking care of a baby is pretty demanding as it is, LOL!

Thankfully the wind, which was blowing some smoke in our direction. It's 11pm, and we happily have the sliding glass door open and are enjoying the living room no longer feeling like a sauna.

Earlier when it was still light, my husband went out on a bicycle to see what he could see. He came back looking a little green, thanks to smoke inhalation, and went to rest and clear his lungs.

I don't know how the fireworks went down in Santa Barbara. Oh, now I do... apparently they went well, in spite of our fire.

I have stayed indoors as much as possible. The smoke was giving me a splitting headache, and it's just not safe to breathe. Worried about Logan, but he seems to be doing ok.

Now that it's cleared up it's SO nice tonight.

Our bedroom has A/C, so when the power is on, we have it running in order to have a cool, smoke-free room to retreat to. Earlier, couldn't stay cool in the rest of the house w/o opening windows and letting smokey air in, so it was a sauna in the rest of the house.

The smoke starts to fall to earth around 6 or 7pm each night. It's SO weird.

Hope this is making sense... typing this in bits and pieces since the power came back on, whenever Logan and situations allow me to do so.

Oh, we took a quick drive around, and could see fire from our car. Trippy.

Gap Fire just North of Goleta/Santa Barbara

I'm sorry I haven't been very active on Tribe, either responding to emails, blog comments, reading other's blogs, or reading and commenting on tribes.

Every evening around 7pm the power goes out because the smoke descends and causes the power lines to be grounded. Then anywhere between 2 to 4 hours later we get our power back. Sometimes it goes down again for a half hour, but then is back up.

So, internet access has been spotty.

Yes, I live in Goleta. I'm just south of the "Evacuation Warning" area. Even though I'm technically not in the warning area, my husband and I have packed up our stuff, piled it in the hallway, and are ready to leave if we have to.

It's going to be interesting fitting a baby and 2 German Shepherds and 2 adults into 2 small cars, LOL! And all the stuff we need to take to take care of the baby and 2 dogs and ourselves. But we'll do it somehow.

My town, Goleta, is smart. They cancelled their fireworks display for tonight. Last night, driving to pick up my son from my father-in-law's place, I drove under a dark brown cloud of smoke that was raining ash all over. There was enough ash built up on the road that cars driving through it would cause it to swirl around in small dust clouds.

While I was driving home, the power went out. People are NOT handling this really well. The traffic lights were out. Many people blew through them instead of treating them like stop signs. I almost drove through one, just being forgetful. Some tempers are flaring... someone cut my Dad off while he was driving home from work, and he had to swerve into the other lane and rear ended someone who was stopped at the light. :P The jackass kept driving, through the intersection w/o stopping, while my Dad and the guy he bumped exchanged insurance information. I think the jackass may have blown through a red light or through a light that was out in so doing, w/o stopping.

And alot of people are driving and looking at the flames at the same time. I'm guilty too, I confess.

When the smoke yesterday came down to cover the sky around 6pm and I had to drive under it and back out to pick up my son, it was like entering the apocalypse.

With the nightly blackouts, and the lack of stars in areas where the smoke is very thick, it's really very scary and eerie.

So, what is my sister town Santa Barbara doing tonight? Having their annual fireworks celebration.

Ash is already starting to drop in downtown SB, and they are still having their celebration.

A bunch of people who aren't locals have probably driven into town. And local or not, if the smoke gets spooky down there and all the lights go out again, I'm afraid there's going to be a panic and/or stampede-like situation.

We've got firefighters, exhausted, working their butts off just north of us and Santa Barbara by a couple of miles, and we're having our fireworks celebration.

Is it just me, or is this really a dumb idea?

Anyway, we're staying home and playing it safe. We want to be ready to evacuate if we have to.

Well, my husband took some photos. Let me find one to upload with this. I better hurry... it's almost blackout time!

4 a.m.

I woke up at 4am having to pee.

Husband was asleep. Boss and Ellie, our German Shepherds, were snoozing away.

Logan, our nearly 7-month old, was sleeping on our bed. At 2am, we'd given up and brought him to bed with us, in his co-sleeper. It was just easier than getting up to comfort him every hour. And yeah, we have to break him of that... he's got to sleep in his own room through the night. But I can totally understand his not wanting to sleep alone.

I have a bad habit of skin-picking when I'm stressed. I target bumps, bug bites, scars, pimples, scabs, edges of wounds left over after picking out a scab, etc. If I find something to pick in one area, I sometimes branch out in that area, continuing to pick.

Yeah, this is NOT a good thing to be doing to myself. :P I know. It's a form of self-injury, and is something that people sometimes fall into using as a bad coping strategy. It's sometimes triggered by my OCD.

So, the last bug bite or pimple or whatever was in my scalp, near my forehead. Been stressing in general... new project at work in new programming language, taking care of baby at night, sleep deprivation... wee. And I sometimes pick at night while lying awake, trying to fall asleep, and that was the case this night.

Anyway, 4am, and I got up to pee. I walk into the bathroom, turn on the light. There's a few small scabs that I'd peeled out of my hair, that's stuck to my bangs. I sigh. There's another peeled-off scab on the top of my head towards the back. Wow, they moved around after I picked them off.

I do my business, go to wash my hands. As I'm soaping up my hands, I look up at myself in the mirror.

The scab on my hair towards the back of my head...

... has 8 legs and is moving!!!

"Solid" Food

Well, Logan has started "Solid" food. :)

I've only been brave enough to feed it to him once. Need to feed him some more tonight, get this into a trend...

And my skin cancer scar is looking much better. My dermatologist rocks. :)

Logan has started trying to hold his bottle on his own. He's such a smart little guy. :)

Ok, got to go pick up dog poo while Logan looks like he's happy watching the Baby channel. :)

Latest and Greatest

So, I survived, thank the Lord, the kidney infection. That was February's great event, LOL.

March was finding out the spot I was concerned about was indeed cancer. But just basal cell. It's a malignant, but very slow moving cancer that I think mostly sticks to your skin, and doesn't try to get anywhere else. I think. Someone please correct me.

So, in March it was biopsied. And I had a stitch on my forehead to close up the biopsy.

And sometime in March I found a daycare place I liked. Logan goes there June 30th. Meanwhile, my Father-in-Law is watching Logan while I'm back at work. Which I started at the end of March. :)

So, April 23rd I had the cancer removed. It was this multiple stage process. They slice a piece off of your forehead -- after first giving you shots of Novocain in your forehead, which, by the way, hurts. But is better than feeling the cutting.

Then they send you into the waiting room while another dude looks at the slide to see if there are any cancers on the edge of the slice. If not, you're done. If so, the other dude tells the doctor where to keep slicing.

There are a ton of other people sitting in the queue in the waiting room waiting to either start getting sliced, get another slice, or hear they're done. They all wear bandages on their heads. I felt like I should write the number down on top of my bandage for what slice I was on. It was like being in a weird bandage club, LOL.

Eventually, when your turn in the queue comes up, you get called back in. If you are lucky, it's to have the hole in your head stitched up or cauterized or whatever they can do to it. If unlucky, it's to get more novocain shots, and to have another slice taken from some quadrant, hopefully just on one edge of your growing wound.

Well, I hit 4 slices. :P It was a bit discouraging. And the needles started to hurt a little worse as they were being pushed into flesh that was getting REALLY TENDER.

However, I got to watch all of Beowulf on my laptop while in the waiting room, LOL. :)

Anyway, I got to the doctor a little before 8am, and I didn't escape until a little after 3pm, with about 10 stitches in my forehead. It was difficult, but the dermatologist managed to close up the wound. It looked a little like Lake Tahoe, LOL.

Now my forehead kinda looks like Frankenstein's monster, in the sense of being ugly stitches. ;)

Stitches HURT. I am being careful not to move my eyebrows alot, LOL. But hopefully the scar won't be too bad. I get the stitches removed next Thursday.

Thank God, they got it all. Whew. :)

I will eventually post pictures. Because, you know, you all want to be grossed out, right? ;)

Meanwhile, Logan is doing well. My husband is doing well, although badly needs a vacation. I'm surviving... work is almost LIKE a vacation, as I get to use my brain and hang out with adults again, LOL. :)

Logan has learned how to roll over, but not how to roll back. He has learned how to blow raspberries. ;) He is almost sitting up. And he and I play hand-grabbing games when I'm breast feeding him in bed, and he needs a break from feeding. :)

He's almost 5 months old, but is already wearing 6 month clothing. Anything new I purchase him will be in the 9 month or 12 month size, as he's growing pretty fast, and it's better to err on the large size with him, LOL!

He's 17 pounds.

Hope everyone here is doing well. Sorry I haven't been online in ages and ages. Just so danged busy!!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Inspired by Lizzer to do this one...

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
Paper.

2. Real tree or artificial?
Real. Then at New Years, we chop it up into little pieces (after detrimming) and burn it one careful highly-flammable piece at a time.

Although, this year, due to Logan, we probably won't have time for a tree. Or Xmas shopping, for that matter!!!

3. When do you put up the tree?
Usually within 2 weeks of Xmas.

4. When do you take the tree down?
New Years Eve.

5. Do you like eggnog?
As long as there isn't any rum in it.

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
Legos.

7. Do you have a nativity scene?
2 if them.

8. Hardest person to buy for?
Any adults.

9. Easiest person to buy for?
Kids.

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
Anything purely decorative that feels "homey" and goes on a wall. Prefer candles for decorations.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Both, but probably not this year.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie?
A Charlie Brown Xmas, plus Badder Santa.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
Normally late November.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Nope.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Cookies.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree?
Colored.

17. Favorite Christmas song?
Anything from A Charlie Brown Christmas, or by Manheim Steamroller.

18. Travel for Christmas or stay at home?
Stay home.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers?
Maybe.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
Star.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Morning?
Eve.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year?
Commercialism, crowds.

23. What I love most about Christmas?
The magical feeling of the seasobn, and the birth of Jesus.