Oh yeah. I remember how this works, I think....

So, yeah, I haven't posted since Sunday. My apologies! This week has been stressful, though not bad, and I've come home every evening and been too sore, too tired, or too brain-dead to write anything up. And right now? Right now I love Twitter, because my stupid little notes to myself on that are all that are letting me remember the day-by-day high points (instead of just the tippy-top weekly high points) as I write this. I don't consider my twitters very useful or informative to others, but as sketch notes to myself, they're kinda handy.

Monday: No specific notes. Hmm. Not sure what happened to Monday, at all. (This is why the occasional high-point Twitter is useful to me....) I do remember this was the day ServPro was supposed to be done at the Ridge, and they weren't quite - one last stubborn spot wasn't quite dry. I don't remember why, but this was a late day at work - oh, yes, I do. I was working on something specific and aggravating, and getting nowhere. (Now my coworker is working on it, because I still had gotten nowhere by Wednesday and was out of ideas to try. Argh!) Also, picked up the on-call phone (I'm on the backup phone this week, so not a big deal).

Tuesday: ServPro finished, and it all looks okay! Yay! Work was continued pursuit of the specific-and-aggravating problem, and also a wrestling match with a tape drive driver. (Which it looked like I failed at but, it turned out Wednesday, I actually did succeed, it's just the person who was working on it remotely needed to do something else to get it behaving. Whew. Rebooting a server that so many people use is not so much fun to schedule that I like having to do it extra times if I screwed something up.)

Also Tuesday morning, I had to resist a facepalm moment because I was in traffic. See, the Komen Portland Race for the Cure is coming up, so the radio stations are all over "race for the cure" babble. 1190 KEX referred to either their team or the thing in general (I wasn't quite sure and their web site isn't helping me clarify) as "walkers for knockers."

Wednesday: Did not have game. Probably won't for a while, not sure how long. The one game out in Newberg is a long drive after a full work day, and I'm not up for it. And I'm not wanting to host here in our house because the games introduce chaos and moving furniture and bags, and Babe can't see. Having unexpected things block her path isn't good and I'm worried she wouldn't move about as freely as she ought to, say, eat and use the litterbox and stuff. Plus, I often just want to lie down in the evenings.

Some of this owes to "sitting all day, need better position" and a lot of it owes to "tired" because my sleep is presently rather broken up. (The middle of the night restroom calls, not so bad. The inability to find a comfortable sleep position for very long most nights, kinda aggravating. Sometimes I can get things arranged in a way that works, but trying to repeat those seldom succeeds. Sigh.)

Yesterday: Good day at work, as far as getting stuff accomplished. Long drive home. Stopped for shopping, failed to find groceries I wanted at Haggen, and decided I'd worry about it today because yesterday afternoon my back was officially announcing that it had Had It with all this "standing" and "walking" crap. Came home and had a lovely soak in Mango Tango scented bathwater (after getting the rest of the MT powder into a nice glass jar for storage, having successfully bought a jar, at least!). Sprawled in bed and read stuff on my iPhone. (The iPhone is pretty good for reading, not so great for typing, so I find I reply less to LJ, which I regret...but it's nice to be able to read stuff while on the go, in places where a laptop doesn't work, or just not having to haul the laptop. I don't know why I own a laptop since I seldom if ever actually take it away from its "usual spot" and use it as if it were - gasp - portable.)

This morning, we should (as long as baby is cooperative) find out if we are having a boy or a girl. I'd say I'm excited, but actually, I was excited earlier this week. Now I'm just grouchy, because I have to drink enough water that this ultrasound had really better start RIGHT ON TIME. Not my favorite part of this whole process, I must admit. (Not my least favorite part, either, so it could be worse. But the most annoying one right this minute.)

And, it's official....

It's a boy!

(Also official: I love having first appointment of the day, they got me in to the ultrasound on time, and in to the rest of the appointment early. Yay!)

I? I love my iPhone.

It's not perfect (the lack of a stylus produced by Apple is a serious aggravation, though I understand there's a third-party-created option I may be able to get - seriously, guys, "fingers-only" is great except your keyboard is smaller than the fingers of most people over the age of maybe eight!).

But it is wonderful (the keyboard mostly works in spite of that). Today I used it to, among other things:
1) Remind me to take my antihistamine (as it always does, and in fact this morning I forgot until it chimed for that!)
2) As a phone, allowing me to coordinate a schedule change with the realtor (signing more disclosure papers, nothing exciting) for my parents' house.
3) As a map device, showing me traffic levels as traffic ground to a halt in front of me. And then, after it showed red into the far distance, calling Scott to get details on the web. I could have done that on the iPhone but NOT WHILE DRIVING. I only dared the map because I was, at the time, literally stopped - the web stuff would've taken longer and I was worried we'd start moving again. Net result of these two steps: knew I was facing an accident, left lane, several miles south of me at Nyberg. Was able to get into the exit lane, skip down the exits (considered switching to surface streets: even worse back-up for the only good route there hastily convinced me otherwise) to Tualatin, get back on. Took probably half the time sitting in the backup would have, but would have been futile if the accident had been a half-mile further south, as it would have made getting back on at Tualatin a sure route to being on 205 then - merging NOT trivial in that backup. (I'd have taken the Tualatin exit for real, and cut across 65th in that case - but not my preferred route when not needed.)
4) This evening, when my back and rib cage started screaming at once to protest that between standing, walking, sitting in one place for too long at a time, getting the ultrasound done and its attendant physical stresses, and emotional stressors today, I was going to give them a break, now, or pay for it in major discomfort...yeah. I went and settled in bed. And after finding a comfy position, I read and read and read. I could not have dealt with a laptop (both hauling it upstairs, and having anywhere reasonable to set it down that would work for any of the comfy positions), but the iPhone was very doable.

Also? I have read David Palmer's Tracking (sequel story to Emergence which is an excellent book; Tracking was in the July/August, September, and October copies of Analog) to the end now. I am...mostly pleased. And that is all I will say, because there are people who read this LJ who liked Emergence and are probably going to read Tracking, and I don't know if they have yet. Plus some of you might go read both, but I am told that finding Emergence (what is out of print) for as little as $25 is an impressive feat these days, so...mostly, I'm trying not to aggravate those as have already read the one and might read the other. ;)

And now it's time for me to go to bed, but I had to come downstairs first. For some reason, I seem to need the charger for this phone now.... :P