Like a chipmunk. That’s how I looked for several days last week. I had some pain and tenderness on the left side of my mouth for a couple of days, and then woke up Thursday to the whole left side of my face being ballooned up. I called into work, made it to a dentist, and got the good news: I had an abscessed molar! Some numbing agents and a few tugs later, it was out and I was already feeling better. The dentist gave me some Tylenol-3—which I only took a couple of to help me sleep the first couple of nights—and put me on nine days (!) of antibiotics.

And of course my mouth troubles were perfectly timed to overlap our moving into the new apartment. Because lugging furniture and heavy boxes around is the perfect accompaniment to having a fever and a roaring headache.

By the way, if you’re going to give advice to someone about HIV/AIDS, make sure you KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT before spouting off some alarmist bullshit.

Sorry. Stupid idiots make me angry.

So the new apartment is beautiful. There are some niggling things that we couldn’t have known about just from a walk-through, but, all-in-all, it’s amazing. Almost nothing is organized yet, of course, but we’re getting there. Friday night was a mad rush to get as much of the kitchen put together as we could, since we hosted a tabletop session yesterday. There’s still quite a bit to do, though.

Today we’ll be heading to my dad’s this afternoon for a late lunch and some visiting. And of course a few card games. It just wouldn’t be a Foecke family gathering without cards.

Josh and I signed a lease on a new place the other day. It’s three bedrooms, one bath, good-sized kitchen, huge living/dining room space, and a fireplace. In fact, it’s basically everything we’ve been looking for—except it’s an apartment, not a house.

It’s also with the same landlord. We’ve had our frustrations with him, but he’s really working with us on the place. Our new lease technically starts on Nov. 1, but we already have the keys and can start moving immediately. He just asked that we clean this place (duh) and be out of here as near Oct. 15 as possible. He even transferred our deposit.

So Josh spent much of yesterday getting a bunch of stuff packed up, and I’m working on laundry today, switching out my summer and winter wardrobes, and putting a lot of stuff aside to take down to Goodwill. Josh “gets” to do the same when he gets home from class, and then we’ll take several car-loads over.

2012ad will be over for dinner and helping us move some stuff this evening. Then she’ll be spending the night so that she doesn’t have to drive all the way back to Drexel tonight just to turn around and drive back again in the morning for gaming. SLUMBER PARTY!

Until today, I hadn’t pulled a work shift that long for a really long time. You see, one of our partners switched data centers today. Normally not such a big deal, right? Change some connection strings and maybe some URLs, and you’re done. But no. They decided they were also going to put new code live. Code that they hadn’t tested. Code that we had to debug the output of for a good 10 hours. WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT? I mean, come on. Common sense, people! You either do the code updates two weeks before the move so you have time to debug the updates, or you do them two weeks after the move so you have time to debug the move.

OH! And when they put the databases on the new server? They did so with no keys, constraints, or indexes of any kind on many of our production tables. What. The. Fuck? Apparently, “We need databases X, Y, and Z in their entirety,” isn’t enough. Of course, it came back to bite them in the ass when the database server started running like shit (uh, duh?) and they had to spend more than two hours indexing tables in the middle of being swamped with other issues.

The bright side to all this, though, is that all of our database servers except for one are off of SQL Server 2000, and that one will be switched next month.

Also, my raise became effective on today’s paycheck. Woot!

So I mentioned that a new programmer started on Wednesday. Yeah, good riddance to bad rubbish. When he hadn’t shown up by 9:00 yesterday morning, we chalked it up to incorrectly estimating his travel time through traffic. Then it was 9:30, and we started to get worried that he’d been in an accident. Then we finally found out, through his recruiter I think, that he’d accepted another job with a different company. Didn’t even have the decency to call us himself and apologize, let alone give notice. Needless to say, neither he nor his recruiter will be seeing a single red cent from us any time soon.

Work is going well. Between my company and our sister company, we’ve made three new hires in the last few weeks, two of whom will report to me on the project I’m managing. One started Monday, another started today, and the third starts Friday. I just found out today that we’re looking for a fourth developer, too. My company’s business model is built on making money for our clients, and that helps a lot in this economy.

I’ve been mulling over some business ideas, and I think I’m ready to start working on one of them. I’m not ready to reveal what it is, of course. There’s already some competition in this space, but I think I bring some unique points of view to the table, as well several details that seem to be lacking in the competing products. One of my coworkers may be helping, which would be great. We have similar enough styles that we work well and quickly together, but we’re different enough to keep each other in check.

Josh began his Eastern Bodywork massage course tonight. This one promises to be interesting—for both him and me. ;)

I got a raise last week! More than 10%, even. I don’t think there was ever a more obvious cosmic sign that I’m in the right place professionally.

I’m helping Christina move to Drexel today. I’ve got a blanket, some rope, two cat carriers, and an SUV to contribute to the cause. I’m a skinny-assed weakling, though, so I don’t have much muscle to contribute. But, it should end up being a pretty painless easy simple process.

Of the Romance languages, I love to hear Italian spoken; and I’m fascinated by Gaelic languages; but my favorite family of languages by far are the Native American/First Peoples languages. There’s something so primal/natural/intuitive about them. They flow and slide and just work.

Five months later, I’ve finally finished moving everything from my desktop to my laptop. Being an obsessive perfectionist is hard work.

We went to an intuition party last night where we explored various aspects of intuition, empathy, psychometry, and telepathy. I had my first Tarot reading. Even by itself, the spread that I drew was very powerful with seven major arcana cards. The whole spread focused on my career in a way that rang very true. It reaffirmed some things, gave me confidence in the path that I’m on, and indicated this path is one of even more strength, success, and transformation than I can know.

So I’ve had Crazy on You stuck in my head since my shower last night. Not that I’m complaining, mind. On the contrary, now there’s something other than a Sesame Street bit in there. As lovely as Madeline Kahn was, and as fun as it is to sing the classic ’Street songs I grew up with, I can only echo myself for so long before I start to annoy myself (not to mention those around me).

Yesterday was a much better day than Monday and Tuesday were. Expressing all that negative energy in a safe outlet was cathartic, and a good night’s sleep helped, too.

I have so much love for Burt’s Bees shaving lotion. The primary scent is bergamot, which I’m just about in love with anyway. Underneath that are lemon, orange, and tangerine to round out the citrus group. Patchouli, fir, and rosemary add a musky-sweet tone. The whole amazing scent lingers lightly on my face for the rest of the night, usually through bedtime. And it makes my skin feel so good.

The last time I plucked my eyebrows, I think I did them a bit unevenly. It’s not really terrible, and I’ll bet nobody else notices. But I think I look like I’m constantly arching my right eyebrow.

Also, I think Oliver sits on my lap while I’m typing just so he can tickle the inside of my elbow with his whiskers. AAAAAH! *annoyedgiggle*

As the evening winds down—and as I get more and more tired—I feel progressively worse about being turned down for the house. I’m actually feeling really bad, and I’m having difficulty dealing.

Our credit histories are the reason we were turned down. Honestly, though, I thought I’d made some progress in that area in the last year. Not huge leaps and bounds of course, but some moderate-yet-significant progress. I know one year doesn’t cancel out seven years of bad habits—heck, I don’t think ten years will be enough—but I thought it would at least make some difference.

Frustration and self-doubt have been creeping into other areas of my life, too. For example, I can logically see that I’m in a really great place professionally—plenty of work, coworkers I get along with, a chance at management. But deadlines are looming and motivation is scarce, and I can’t help feeling useless.

My subconscious is probably about thisclose to restarting its clever little anxiety “episodes”. (They aren’t debilitating attacks, so I call them episodes.) I haven’t had one in at least seven years, but I think I fended one off earlier today. It was minor, as far as they go, but all the right feelings were there.

Anyway, all of that culminates in Bill feeling bad. And now that I’ve stayed up too late once again, I’d best get to bed. Here’s to sleeping well and feeling better tomorrow.

So Saturday’s dinner was a success. We had ham & beans, of course, and I surprised Josh with fresh corn on the cob and banana bread. Talked with my mom a while, too. Mostly to shoot the breeze, but also to get her banana bread recipe. She has a Betty Crocker cookbook from (I think) the ’70s. It has some of the best recipes in it. Even some of the classics like banana bread are different in the newer editions of the cookbook. I’m sure they probably taste fine, but I can’t help being a stickler for the tried and true. I grew up with those recipes, thankyouverymuch, and I plan to keep using them.

I’ve been sleeping like crap the last few days. Either Josh or I was disturbed by the storms Sunday night, and that person set the other off. Of course, everyone I talk to says they slept poorly Sunday night, so it could just be going around. That doesn’t explain last night, though. I know an earlier bedtime would probably help things, but I have this insatiable nosy-controlling streak that’s difficult to quell. The long and short of it is I feel like I’m “missing out” if I go to bed before Josh does. I don’t know exactly what I’m missing out on, but that isn’t the point now, is it?

We didn’t get approved for the house we applied for on Friday, so it’s back to the drawing board—or the craigslist, as the case may be. I’m very discouraged about the whole situation now. We had wanted to start a new lease on September 1, but that date is approaching quickly, and I’m not optimistic. I’m not afraid our current landlord will kick us out by any means, but he did ask that we not move out during the winter months, so our window of opportunity is quickly closing.

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing right things.” - Peter Drucker

This rings especially true with me today, as I’ll soon be taking on a not-insignificant project management role at work. It’s not a promotion per se, but it’s a new opportunity and responsibility—and it’s on a project that, while important, won’t die a violent and fiery death if I fail miserably. Not that I think I’ll fail, of course, but anything can happen.

Josh and I applied for another house in Westport yesterday. The first house we applied for... isn’t going to happen. We didn’t get turned down, but it didn’t work out. We are SO EXCITED for this new house, though. Josh went to see it on Wednesday, and then he met me to see it yesterday. Our original plan was to talk about it over the weekend and then apply Monday or Tuesday, but we couldn’t wait. It’s really that great, and we didn’t want to take the chance that someone else might get it first. We should know by Tuesday. *fingers crossed*

We had dinner on Thursday with Christina, her new beau, and one of my old coworkers, Irene. Irene manages a cat sanctuary where she takes care of about 30 domestic cats (tame and feral), a lynx, and a caracal. Christina will be moving down there to learn the cats and eventually take over, so Thursday's dinner was to catch up and work out some of the logistics.

Tonight’s dinner: ham & beans and a surprise. I have some shopping to do, so I’d best get my day started.

I’ve really been digging “Heavy Cross” by Gossip lately. I’ll catch myself chair-dancing to it, even if it’s only playing in my head. Matisayhu is also back on my radar. I think a few album purchases may be in my future.

Yesterday was about nine hours of gaming with Christina (2012ad), Josh (nashoba143), and a new fellow, Matt. The food theme was “junk food,” and I think we succeeded. Vegan “nomchos” with all the fixings; black bean hummus with pita chips and veggies; peach and blueberry cobbler with vanilla soy ice cream; and soy pudding. It was a hit, I think, as evidenced by the lack of leftovers.

Josh and I put in an application for a rental house in Westport. We’re really excited about it, so fingers crossed. Needless to say, there will be housewarmings and dinner parties galore. We have too many fabulous friends to not party it up. :)

Work is once again a hectic mess as I get shared between sister companies to do (what feels like) the work of two. The stress is mounting, and motivation is hard to come by these days. I don’t usually shut down under stress, but this is the same project I’ve been working on day-in and day-out since the middle of May—with very little else to break the monotony. So, yeah, I have a bit of a zombie thing going on.

I can hear them over the constant roar of the air conditioner.

I just got back from lunch at Kokoro Maki House. I met Josh and some of his classmates for lunch. It had been a while since I’d eaten there, but it was as good as ever.

Josh gave me a hot stone massage last night—his first outside of class. It was wonderful. I nearly fell asleep several times, and I started drooling a couple of times while I was face-down. It lasted a long time, too—nearly two hours. (That’s not a complaint.) By the time he was finished, I was ready to roll straight into bed.

A nap is in order soon, as we might be going out to Missy B’s tonight. We aren’t sure what time yet, but it will inevitably be “late,” so I’ll need to rest up.

When Josh went to the doctor a few months ago, he was told his cholesterol and blood pressure were a bit high. Diet and exercise were the prescription, and that included going low-carb. He immediately set out to cull the carbs from his diet. I decided to do it too, as a show of support and solidarity.

We decided early on that sugar-sweetened iced tea wasn’t going anywhere. Rice and potatoes were scaled way back. And we had to start avoiding typical breads. Even cornbread was cut—how ironic a restriction for a Native American.

But all hope was not lost! We reduced the amount of sugar we used in iced tea. Mashed potatoes—a staple of our shared diet—were easily replaced with mashed turnips. And we found flax bread.

Now this bread tastes downright amazing and is really fast and easy to make. 30 minutes, tops (and two-thirds of that is baking time). So let’s get to it, shall we?

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Some comments on the recipe:

• In reading the reviews on the original recipe page, a common variant on the liquid side is to use 3 Tbsp oil and 1 c water, but Josh and I find the traditional recipe works perfectly well as it is.


• We like to spread ours pretty thin on a 13x18 baking sheet so we get 16 “slices” from the “loaf”. This has the side-effect of reducing the baking time somewhat, so we make sure to check on it after about 15 minutes.


• We typically add some blend or another of herbs and spices to the batter.


• We haven’t yet tried it with vegan egg replacer, although I think we’ll do that soon so 2012ad can join in the noms.


• It turns out best when we buy golden flax in bulk from Hy-Vee or Whole Foods and mill it at home. We got this 12-cup coffee grinder at Costco (for about half the price of Amazon, FYI) that works perfectly for milling flax on its finest setting.


• We’ve used Bob’s Red Mill flax meal in the past, but I’m not a big fan. I find it requires some extra baking time. It also has a salty flavor, so I completely omit the salt from the recipe.

Last eve, I whipped up a batch to have with supper. I added a spoonful of tomato-basil-garlic Mrs. Dash (not vegan, if you’re curious) to the batter, and it turned out really tasty. My favorite use for the bread by far, though, is for tuna melts. Something about the way the flavors of the fish and cheese and bread combine just make it heaven.

Now, what food post would be complete without pictures? I began with flax meal. The finished product tasted better because what I started with was so pretty:

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I forgot to take a picture of mixing the batter—d’oh! I didn’t remember until I’d already poured it onto the pan:

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I considered scooping everything back into the mixing bowl for a picture, but the oven was already hot. Besides, the longer I dawdled putting it in the oven, the longer it would be before I could scarf it down:

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Once the bread was done, Josh made the eggs. Fried lightly in some butter with a sprinkle of paprika: magnifique!

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Actually, gone nearly two months ago, but I’m lazy. I redid the do last night, though, and am finally inspired to post.

So here’s how this went down. About two months ago, just before Josh’s birthday, I started off by measuring the current length of my hair. It was somewhere between “In my eyes” and “HOLY CRAP IT’S IN MY EYES”:

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Then I applied the clippers judiciously—with more help from Josh than I care to admit:

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But it didn’t stop there! Oh no. Last night, I got a bug up my butt to make liberal use of a razor:

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And that’s my story.

This spam email has been staring me in the face for the last month. I refuse to read it, intriguing though it might be. At this point, it’s become a personal challenge. It’ll be automatically deleted in three days, and I’ll have won.

I was able to complete the project at work (this phase of it, anyway), so I had yesterday off. It was a great day, too; I definitely needed it. I spent most of the morning catching up on RSS feeds in Google Reader, then I took my car to be inspected and renew its registration.

Toward mid-afternoon, I went to visit Josh at work. I only got to see him a few times very briefly, even though I spent a little more than two hours there. I ended up in the kitchen, as I always do. The facility employs the coolest people in the kitchen. Sarah, the cook on staff yesterday, is an incredibly talented baker. On Thursday, she baked peanut butter cookies. Josh was going to save me one, but they went pretty fast. Sarah, being a sweetheart, baked a half-batch of them for me when I arrived. She was also doing a cake and had done some other cookies. We talked about making lemon-poppyseed bread, too, but ran out of time before she had to start working on dinner.

Somehow, we got on the topic of homemade Play-Doh. All of the recipes I could think of weren’t terribly difficult, but they were annoying. But then, I thought of cornstarch slime. I’d always thought the concoction was a rite of passage for every child, but apparently not for Sarah. So, about halfway into my visit, I whipped up a bowl of that, and we proceeded to amuse ourselves.

While Josh was doing a massage today, I went to see about some houses for rent. Though the place we’re in now was a great find for us a year ago, it’s just not a good fit for us anymore. First of all, we’re in the attic apartment of a converted house, and it gets hot. Secondly, we’re in the attic apartment, and we’re both over six feet tall. Third, while our landlord has been pretty responsive to our needs, his handyman has not. Now I know that’s going to be a gamble wherever we go, but we’re willing to take the risk. Even if we continue to have some of the same problems, we’ll be in a full house rather than just an apartment, and that will help a lot.

So I’ve worked the last three weekends and stayed late at the office several days throughout the last few weeks in order to complete a somewhat short-notice project. I don’t mind the project itself—in fact, I enjoy it quite a lot—but I think the deadline (today) wasn’t reasoned out very well. (And I do feel justified in complaining just a little, since my boss set the deadline and not me.) Ah well. If all goes according to plan, I’ll have a three-day weekend starting Friday. Then I can forget all about it—until Monday rolls around, that is, and I have to start on phase 2.

I had a little bit of a stomach upset last week that seems to have passed with no lasting effect. And I decided this past Saturday to do a caffeine detox. I know, I know—I couldn’t have picked a worse time, right? So I’ve been going through the withdrawal of that, which has been no end of annoying, let me tell you. The headaches have passed, but my legs and lower back have been killing me.

My back woke me up at 5:15 this morning. I dozed fitfully until 6:45 before resigning myself and getting up for good. Combine that with the angry thunderstorms the two nights previous, and I haven’t been sleeping well at all. I’m finding herbal tea to be a great boon. A Bigelow blend called Sweet Dreams helps quite a lot with relaxing my achy muscles, and a ginger-ginseng blend from a local herb shop is energizing.

I finally received my copy of Bethany’s Crossing! It’s my friend Tammy’s first publication. I haven’t started it yet as I simply haven’t had the time, but I’ll probably devour it this weekend.

Now I’d best get to packing a lunch. I’ve got another long day ahead of me.

That’s 15 freshly laundered sets of sheets for Josh’s massage table. Even though he was never a Boy Scout, I still tend to hold him to our motto. It’s sound advice whoever you are.

Josh’s massage classes are progressing quickly. He passed his basic Swedish class with flying colors, and now they’re on to advanced techniques and specialties. Some (well, at least one) of you will be excited to know that his hot stone class is in two weeks. ;)

It’s been such a neat journey so far, and I’m glad I’ve been along with him for the ride. To be able to experience his growth and progression first-hand has been really sort of enlightening in a way I can’t quite articulate.

“We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.” - Frank Tibolt

The worst part about Grandma’s death is that Grandpa is alone now. He pretty much needs 24-hour care due to his advanced Parkinson’s and the fact that a farmer’s body just wears out; Grandma, of course, provided that for him. He’s agreed to a trial of having some outside help come in during the daytime hours with the family taking over at night. Honestly, though, I don’t know how long that can last from the family’s perspective. We all want him to agree to full-time help so he won’t have to move to a nursing home, but he’s as stubborn and proud as any old man has a right to be, so we’ll just have to wait and see.