To everyone who offered well-wishes -- thanks :-)

I have just finished reading Andre Norton's obituary. I have to confess that I've never read any of her books, I'm not really sure why; all I can say is that my reading has tended to be spotty, traveling in many different directions at once, and I have a lot of holes where "classics" in the field should be. No Tolkien, no Bradbury -- no Andre Norton.

But I had no idea she lived in Murfreesboro, TN, only an hour away from where I'm from. I had no idea she'd opened a writer's library and retreat there. Could I have visited it? I have no idea. But I still feel that I should at least have known she lived so close to my hometown. And now, of course, she's dead.

Anyway, it's a weird feeling.

Right now I'm waiting for the husband to bring home food from Chevy's, which I have had a hankering for. I've pretty much given up cooking, because just walking into the kitchen makes me want to throw up. I can hardly open the door to the refrigerator anymore because the smell turns my stomach so. And it's not like there's anything rotting and outgassing in there. No, it's just that normal refrigerator smell that the non-pregnant never notice.

What also smells utterly nauseating to me is bread. The entire grocery store smells like bread. This is not a good thing.

Today I waged a war on the smells in my house. I couldn't sleep this morning, for some weird reason (hey, I got eight whole straight hours of sleep!) and so I got up at 7:30 (this does not seem like much of a big deal to the rest of the world, but I can barely keep my eyes open past 9 PM), and managed to eat and sit quietly on the couch with my notebook and then my laptop for quite a while before the kids got up. So I felt pretty good about mid-morning. Good enough to clean the bathrooms. But my steam, and Ethan's forbearance, ran out by the time I got to the kitchen, so the kitchen is still in its sorry state, and Citrus Lysol only covers up so much diaper odor. Therefore, Chevy's, which should be arriving soon. Beef chimichanga, chips and salsa, and a nice big green salad.

Yep, I puke when I smell bread, but give me some deep-fried beef -- please! Biology is a weird thing.

I am this close to being done, as in finished-kaput-done, with Storm Clouds. In fact, if Ethan hadn't started pushing random buttons this afternoon, I would have finished about an hour ago. But still -- close enough for the self-esteem to be high, which is a good thing considering all the things that need to be done around here, and the fact that we have been sick all week (including a late-night trip to the ER for Ethan last Sunday night -- a 105 degree fever), and that yesterday morning at breakfast, a low point, I had to go sit outside on my front step and cry because Ethan has been attatched to me like a screaming dryer sheet for the past two days, even without fever, and there was no listening going on at the breakfast table from the other two, and being sick and tired and wanting to throw up from the smell of bacon -- well, like I said, a low point. Funny how even a little bit of writing progress can clear the air, though. I managed parts 3 and 4 over the weekend when I felt horrible and was only sitting around being utterly useless, and then yesterday afternoon I did most of part 5. Finished part 5 this morning and went on to 6 this afternoon, and now I have, like, one more chapter and an epilogue to get through, and I will declare THE END, forever and ever, or at least until an editor has a go at it (which we hope for, even though it is not looking so good at the moment.)

So yeah, progress on at least one front, and that's a good thing. Otherwise, my life is utter chaos, and my husband still will not set a firm date for leaving his job so I can engage moving companies, realtors, etc.

Just a little frustrated with him right now, but of course, he is bringing me food tonight. So maybe I can forgive him.