Yesterday was cool and drizzly. In SoCal. In June. Unnatural to the point where I (who have lived here 25+ years) literally cannot remember the last time we got precipitation in June. And yet some people deny that climate change is real.

But the precipitation was nice.

Today is kind of a blarg day, though the sun is out. Starting the day with the news of the Orlando massacre kind of... set the tone. And made today's Oglaf strip (warning: NSFW) particularly ill-timed. Plus the head cold lingers on.

Nonetheless, I've been plugging away at getting caught up with all the housekeeping that's fallen to the wayside while I've been out of it. And Wonderful Husband sorted through his side of the closet and determined that he needed another couple work shirts, so we went and did Requisite Retail Clothes Shopping. Which for me consisted of socks and undies, since most other things I get at thrift shops. Yay for my semi-Bohemian style. Squiddle got nothing, since his clothing bureau is currently full to bursting.

I'm now at 28 weeks pregnant, which means I get to start doing kick counts today! How long does it take Jazzy to kick me ten times? Let's find out. :) I also got back the results of my blood glucose test, and they were a little high, so I'm expecting my ob-gyn to want me to take the three-hour test. I avoided gestational diabetes the first time. Time to start applying a bit of discipline and see if I can avoid it this time as well.

But for now, while the malefolk are napping, I should go water the potted plants.

(A husband and two sons. I'm going to experience testosterone poisoning starting in about ten years. I've forewarned Wonderful Husband that come that point, I am going to start putting doilies on everything. EVERYTHING.)

Still sick, but much improved today. Nonetheless, not going to take Squiddle to his class this morning. No need for me to pass this on to a roomful of toddlers and their parents. And it's only a two-week break until the class starts up again in summer anyway.

Wonderful Husband is working from home today, a respite from the ridiculous hours the rest of his hell-week has had him keeping. Letting him have a lie-in for another half hour until he needs to get up for his first conference call meeting. I'll probably take a nap this afternoon when Squiddle does.

Doctor's appointment today for a Rhogam shot. I'm Rh-negative and Wonderful Husband isn't (neither is Squiddle), which means the mismatch can cause pregnancy complications. The shots hurt, but less than the alternative would, so que sera sera.

And it turns out the little boy kitten my mother was adopting is in fact a little girl kitten! Since usually the visual inspection (a colon or an exclamation mark on the behind) is enough to determine this, it came as something of a surprise to Mom when the pound called her after the kitten got fixed to report that inside, the kitten had the other set of plumbing. My mother's taking her anyway (it's a CAT, it's been fixed, does gender even matter?), and I'm for some reason finding it vastly amusing that my mother has a trans kitten.

Went to the new quilt guild meeting this morning. Had a great time. The members were friendly (though I suspect at 39, I was the youngest person in the room - but then that's almost true of my other quilt guild as well) and the guest speaker was great. I wish I was able to take her class tomorrow! But (a) I hadn't cleared babysitting Squiddle with my mother, and (b) the class was full anyway.

I'd actually been to this guild before, something like fifteen years ago when was taking my grandmother to it. But that's a lifetime ago! The main reasons I hadn't been attending it since I got back into quilting were (a) daytime meetings, thereby necessitating child care for Squiddle, and I do not want to take my parents for granted in that respect, and (b) the fact that it's second Wednesday morning of the month meetings - and my other guild is second Tuesday evening of the month meetings. Which mean most months (though not this one) the meetings will be back to back! But I had a really good time, so I'm glad I'd decided ahead of time to pay full membership dues rather than just be a visitor/guest for my first meeting.

After that, and after lunch with my parents and Skyping my inlaws so they could see Squiddle open a package they'd sent to him, my mother, Squiddle, and myself went off to the Orange County Animal Shelter so my mother could visit and adopt a kitten she'd bonded with. "Her" cat was killed by a pack of coyotes a couple weeks ago. One of her neighbors has a security camera and caught it on tape. Never let anyone tell you there isn't wildlife in the middle of suburbia! But she was ready, and the two-month-old black kitten was active, curious, and friendly. Squiddle wanted to hold him, but we agreed that was a bad idea - he can pet the kitten (thus far nameless) when someone else is holding him, but not hold him his very own self.

Downside to the day: seem to've caught Squiddle's headcold from the other day. Or, at least, I have a scratchy throat, no energy to make dinner, little want to sew, and not overmuch desire to go to my writing class tonight. :(

ETA: Definitely sick. Not a good week for this.

Finally watched Despicable Me 2 the other day. Like the first one, it was brightly colored and fun, but (also like the first one) Wonderful Husband and I kind of wish the plot had gone in a different direction. Ah well.

We also went to the movie theater yesterday to see Deadpool. Which so very much earned its R rating (violence in spades, language, sex and nudity)... but was a hell of a lot of fun. Would definitely watch again.

Have been reading lots of books, too. Powered my way through rereading The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy, and am currently working on rereading Ysabel. I also finished Games Wizards Play, which was intriguing, and read Captive Prince. Which feels like it started life as fanfic of something, but if so, it's either something I don't know, or the author did a very good job of filing off the serial numbers. So at some point I need to post reviews of those latter two.

But for now, my new computer is not yet up and assembled, and Wonderful Husband and Squiddle and I are still in the middle of a long recovery from being sick. We're in various stages of "mostly healthy but occasionally coughing lungs out," which is not fun. I'm just hoping we're all back to completely healthy by the time we step on a plane next month.

Though the wheels of the road to healthiness turn steady, oh but do they seem to turn slow.

I've been sick this winter more than usual. I've missed writing class twice this term! I'm hoping I'm just burning through my winter illness quota early.

The weather, at least, has turned suspiciously nice. Which means I need to spend time in the garden this weekend, pruning back roses and potting up blueberry plants and getting seeds started. And in just over a month I get to disappear off to the UK for five weeks, leaving it all in the hands of my mother. Who is a fantastic gardener without much of a garden of her own this year, but that doesn't help me feel less guilty about having to dump it all on her. :/

But for now I should go clean house some more and then try to sew. Quilt guild on Tuesday. Also Pancake Day. Trying to figure out how to do both....

The thing about reading each new volume of A Bride's Story is that it ends all too soon and I'm left to mourn the fact that it will be a whole year until the next comes out. ;_;

It has been raining here. 1.2 inches on Tuesday, .7 inches yesterday, and another .9 overnight... leading me to do calculations of, if we get rain gutters on the house next year, how many rain barrels would be optimal for the back half of the house? (My odd fact for the week is that there's 231 cubic inches in a gallon of water.)

Unfortunately, though, I have been sick, so not as able to enjoy the rain as well as I'd like. I've caught the head cold that's been floating around the family. And I think I've possibly got it worst of everyone. Right now my throat feels like it's been sliced vertically by razor blades. Lots and lots of hot tea. Little to no speaking. And a general musing on the unfairness of the universe that being a SAHM means I can't take a couple days off to R&R at home....

Ah well. This too shall pass.

I have a (hopefully) 24-hour bug. Spent a good portion of yesterday afternoon under three blankets, trying to warm up, and a good portion of yesterday evening trying not to throw up. Feeling better today, but cancelled my dental appointment nonetheless because this morning I wasn't sure if things were going to improve or go south.

Still hoping to make my writing class tonight, though. It's the last class for the term, and our annual holiday book exchange. I'm slightly upping the ante - mine is a bag with seven sci-fi/fantasy paperbacks in it, all ones that are on my bookshelves. Neil Gaiman, Lois McMcaster Bujold, Guy Gavriel Kay. I set myself a spending limit of $10. I love thrift stores.

Unfortunately, the class is also a potluck, and I signed up to make an appetizer. I was planning bacon-wrapped dates... but unless my current sensitivity to cooked-food smells abates in the next couple hours, I may not be able to stomach making anything.

I had the second part of my eye exam today, which involved dilation. Not fun like whoa. Having my vision go away, everything blurry, being unable to read or sew... I was almost crying, after just a couple hours of it. Fortunately it was just for an exam, and I'm now seeing normally again, but that experience has been added to my stock of nightmare/sympathetic understandings fuel.

(To understand my normal frame of reference, I'm 20/20 in my dominant eye and apparently 20/25 in my other.)

So no real work got done today, though this evening, as my vision came back, I finished hand-stitching the binding on the latest quilt. (Not the black/orange one, the one before that which I haven't yet posted pictures of.) Squiddle seems to really really like this quilt. He keeps playing on/with it, and was stealing the backing fabric while I was laying it out. Alas, it's not for him. And it's not like I haven't made him three of his very own so far!

I have two frames left to do in the Powerpoint presentation, testing it on laptop-chan, and printing out/photocopying the handouts for the machine quilting class. Then the only remaining prep is doing the handout for the blackwork class. I have until Thursday.

Wonderful Husband has a peanut allergy. A lot of restaurants fry things in refined peanut oil, which theoretically has the enzyme that he would be allergic to, removed. Yeah. That isn't something we've cared to test.

Wonderful Husband also has eczema. His dermatologist prescribed him a topical oil to see if it would help. The first time he used the oil, his arms turned red and itched like crazy. Last night, Wonderful Husband thought to check its ingredients list.

Refined peanut oil.

*facepalm*

One, we're incredibly lucky his reaction wasn't worse. Two, the dermatologist is going to be receiving some stern words. And three, if medical-grade refined peanut oil causes an allergic reaction like this, there's no way in hell we're ever eating at a place that uses food-grade refined peanut oil.

Hooray for 24-hour viruses! We all seem to be better now, and hopefully my inlaws won't catch it.