MIGRAINE SEASON?
There is something to be said for record keeping over a period of years. I've just spent most of the past 2 days in pain from a migraine. Somewhere along the way I noticed the date, and began to to put some ideas together. For several year snow, it seems that somewhere between mid Feb and mid March I get slammed with at least one and usually 2-4 stubborn evil multi-day migraines. I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't some sort of stackable trigger component here. Is it the beginnings of pollen? Or that by this time of year my Vit D is ludicrously stupidly low ?(Just found that part out this week) Last year the tip over into migraine hell was bronchitis, in almost exactly the same time frame. The year before, I think it might have been the blooming stuff. I can't prove any of this. Stackable triggers are vague and unpredictable. One combo might get you a couple hours of misery where a single dose of meds does the trick, some other combo is whammy hell and leads to casting fond glances at the ER where I can get MgS04 by IV. (I'm still thinking I might end up there before the week is out.)

THE EYEGLASSES SAGA CONTINUES
Find a sane optometrist on the 4th try. Check. Get a rx for distance glasses that seems to make sense. Check. Glasses I can wear? Um, not yet. I take a certain amount of responsibility for this, for being a wuss and not putting my foot down. I let the lady at the optometrist con me into ordering a pair of glasses with frames along the top instead of the rimless kind which the only kind my eyes can tolerate. Why on earth I let this happen is a mix of reasons- they don't carry the rimless kind and I was happy that the optometrist was sane and willing to work with me. I caved. So stupid.

It took almost an entire month to even get the glasses. I wore them one day. Exactly one day. In 3 little 20 minutes chunks. And then I paid, and paid and paid with about 18hrs of migraine pain.

There's a whole set of things wrong with that pair of glasses. #1- the bar across the top (i.e. the rimmed frame) blocks about the upper 30% of my vision field. # 2- that wonderous bar reflects down into the arcs of exposed glass on the lower edge and combines to give me what amounts to almost tunnel vision. # 3- They were supposed to change colors, as in the transitions- gets darker with light- idea. Well... they sort of did, after 20 minutes in full sunlight and not at all in the car. Considering I got these things to improve my clarity when driving... having no darkening was a BIG problem. I am so chronically photophobic I ought to qualify for vampire-hood. I wear my sunglasses probably 35-40 hrs a week, sometimes inside and sometimes at night. #4 - when I walked into the parking garage to drive home that night it was like looking through a fly-eye. The 4 rows of overhead lights had magically become about 30 rows. I actually had to take off the glasses to walk to my van without losing my balance.

All in all, it was a disaster. But it doesn't get any better, because even though I've returned the glasses this morning, my insurance will take weeks to fix. The timeline goes like this: 3-5 days for bad pair to get mailed back to manufacturer + 10 or more days for insurance company to credit my account + 2-4 weeks to get someplace else to create a new pair. And that's if everything goes according to plan! Add that up and the best case scenario is that I MIGHT be able to get another pair in a month. More realistically it's gonna be 2-3 months.

QUEEN OF THE IMPULSE BUY
The hubby and I often take months to come to decisions on which appliance to buy and which gadget. I think we started talking about the recent TV purchase about a year ago, and actively began hunting around for it 3 months ago and eventually rolled around to buying it a week after Xmas this year.

My usual price limit on "I want it and I want it now" usually hovers around $20. Call it an act of desperation (because I'm tired of listening to the bad bass thud of the asshat neighbors next door 8-10 hours a night) or call it a moment of weakness, or maybe it's should be labeled hormonal insanity.

I bought a subwoofer. I bought a Klipsch 350 Watt subwoofer.

The last straw in this momentary lapse in sanity was listening to one of my fave european techno musicians, Basshunter, and realizing my stereo has close to no actual bass whatsoever. (I usually tend to listen to my music on my headphones) If I'm listening to Basshunter, I want to FEEL the beat. We went to Best Buy this afternoon and spent a whopping 20ish minutes punching buttons in the speaker aisle. The moment I pushed the one that vibrated my feet---it was lust. "I want that one."

I think the sales dude was amused when I told him I like Bassuhunter. He even offered to sell me the 500 Watt one. (I did draw the line at that level of crazy.)

DH got it all hooked up and holy crap .... Privjet Russia sounds amazing! Okay so I'm crazy, but it's fun kind of crazy.

MAN HOURS
There's just no accounting for how my brain works. Groupon sent me a advert for 3 man hours of cleaning for a particlaur price. Immediately my brain starts wondering are they really going to send a man to clean my house? Oh wow, that would be cool and has all sorts of plot bunny possibilities. He could move furniture and vaccuum behind it and stuff. Would he wear a maid's outfit? Okay, brain lock on that one. How 'bout jeans and really tight white t-shirt...
Then I got to the second part of that the ad. -----A 49-point cleaning checklist helps the team to stay focused throughout the service, guiding them from room to room as they tick the boxes next to "disinfect sinks," "vacuum carpets," and "polish glassware in Frankensteinian underground laboratory."---
Really? You'd polish my glassware? There are days when there is a lab in my kitchen, which unfortunately is not underground. Drat, maybe that how they get out of actually having to do the aforementioned task.
The last part of the ad claims they guarantee 24 hrs worth of cleanliness after the visit. Say what? I have 2 kids, 2 cats and a husband who has rocket parts all over the library. Do these people cast a magic spell? Or is there duct tape involved? Hmmm, maybe I need to look into this.

NO "I"'S FOR ME

The latest senseless stupidity of the Apple/Mac empire is impication that if you use their software or app thing to create an ebook, they get a have some form of ownership on that creation. It doesn't appear that it's sufficient that the customer had to purchase the app. Noooo, big daddy corporate giant wants a slice of your profits too.

I am blissfully happy to say I don't own an "I" anything. No pads, no phones, no desktops, no ipods, no apps. Nada. And I probably never will. Any corporation that exerts that psycho level of control over everything they produce will ever get a dime of my money.

WIN A FREE COPY OF DROWNING IN YOU

Over on my website, I'm giving away a free copy of my new Cobblestone Press release called Drowning in You

Matt Pulaski and Declan Foster are DEA agents in San Diego. When Declan nearly dies during a raid, Matt volunteers to keep an eye on his adrenalin junkie partner. Declan’s near death experience causes him to reevaluate his life. In his bucket list are some urges that he’s been suppressing. Fortunately, Matt is willing to help. Declan’s newly recognized feelings come as a surprise, and he’s pretty confused. Being a DEA agent is no walk in the park. Danger is always around the corner and bigotry doesn’t tend to be too far away even if things are changing.

http://cobblestone-press.com/catalog/books/drowning.htm

THE PERILS OF KINDLE... OR IS THAT KINDL-ING?

I got a Kindle for Christmas. Yeah, I've been oh so slow to jump on the bandwagon of using an e-reader. Kind of funny I suppose for an author that uses the e-publishing world extensively. It's not like I don't read other people e-books ;) I do. I've just been doing it on my laptop for the past few years.

Now I have a gadget, a gadget that allows me to surf Amazon and download a book with the touch of one button and the book is delivered to the Kindle in about 60 seconds. O...M....G... Talk about the advent of instant gratification. I confess I don't read as much as I used to, (too busy writing) but I still have a tendency to binge read at times. Gee, that sounded like a weight watchers confession. It's just a little scary that I could blow a whole lot of money in a really short time if the notion struck me.