What Is It Now?

About four months ago I boasted about sending off an article for Idunna, the quarterly journal published by The Troth.  Today, arcturus and I received our copy of the Spring issue that contains my article.  Sure it's a niche publication with only a few hundred readers, that depends on writing without monetary compensation, but it still makes me feel good.  Here is the article for those of you who don't get the journal.

 

As an aside to my SCA friends, Idunna is editted by dpaxson , one of the founders of the SCA, and Idunna falls under the the auspices of the Troth's Shope (or Publishing Director) who is currently dr_beowulf  who happens to be an old schoolmate of margaretc .  Small World.

In case you don't see me on Facebook, here are pictures of the new kids that were born a week and a half ago.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1580337448&ref=profile#/album.php?aid=70438&id=675593079

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=25009012&ref=nf#/album.php?aid=2182579&id=25009106

On Sunday, I got my semi-annual performance review at TJ's, the third since I've been with the company.   Lately, I'd been unsure of where I stood in the company, but that's mostly my insecurity talking.  I actually did quite well, better than my previous two, in fact, and none of them have been bad.  The best part was that I got a 6% raise, which is pretty remarkable in this economy.

On Wednesday I had my third Guitar lesson.  It had been two weeks since my previous one, since I canceled last week due to ice.  I had not practiced as much as I should have.  Despite this, my instructor was pleased with my progress in learning chords.  At one point I played a chord for him that I stumbled upon when just playing around, one that was not in my notes.  I told him that it sounded familiar to me, yet rare and that it reminded me of a couple of artists.  He told me that I had a good ear, and that not many people at my level would have been able to pick that out.

Last night, Arcturus calculated our taxes, and we saw that with our refund, we would be able to pay off the last of the credit card debt that has  the huge interest rate.  For those of you that don't know, this was for house construction overages and were done at a deal of no interest for a year.  It took us a little longer than we expected to pay it off, but now we should pay it off sooner than we were expecting just a few days ago.  We still have accumulated credit card debt on another card however, but that shouldn't take too much longer to pay off.  Arcturus's even thinking of getting the present for herself that she's wanted for a while, but we haven't been able to afford:  a clan Mackay kilt for me to wear.

It's been a good week.

edited for spelling and punctuation

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Damn you heathen! Your book learnin' has done warped your mind. You shall not be invited next time I sacrifice a goat.

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The 8%? Animal sacrifice.

So last Yule sumbel I made this boast that I would write a particular article for Idunna (which is journal put out by The Troth quarterly) by this year's Yule sumbel.  I procrastinated and struggled through The Well and the Tree, and finally wrote an outline in October.  December came, and it became crunch time, and every time I could get away from distraction (which is hard considering a) Alfie, b) Arcturus's work schedule and load and c) my head,   I would work a bit on it.  Finally, we got through Arcturus's semester and Midwinter festivities, and I was finally able to dedicate some time to the paper.

The deadline was tonight.  I finished the rough draft at 11:30 Thursday night.  I figured "No problem".  I can get Arcturus and Dan Campbell to proofread and I'll get it fixed in time to send to dpaxson by the time we need to go to the feast on Saturday, and I should even be able to get a nap in there, too.

When I got up fo work this morning at 3:10 am, Arcturus wasn't feeling good.  She wanted a garbage can by the bed just in case.  At 5:47, she called me at work as I was struggling with the mountain of meat backstock and told me that i might have to come home early, as she thought she had food poisoning.  At 7:39 she called again, and I came home.  Thankfully I got no grief from work. 

I got home and took care of her a bit, and fed the goats breakfast (not something I normally do) before Alfie got up.  I then had to take care of Arcturus (who fainted at one point) and Alfie, bake a pie that Arcturus signed up to make for the feast (a rather complicated pie at that) run and hang two loads of laundry (the white load even had several poopy diapers that needed to be dunked in the toilet before being thrown in the wash) and finish my article.  The article got emailed to dpaxson at 5:35.  And I got everything else done for us to get to the feast site at 6:30, just in time for the blot.  Arcturus was feeling better at that point, but not spectacular.

Oh, I left out the part where Arcturus passed out coming out of the shower and I had to catch her.  Fun times.

I'm not going to go into what the article is on until it gets published, but I will say that it is born from a combination of three parts of my life:  Heathenry, parenthood, and geekery.

Oh yeah.  The pie was delicious.

Now time to collapse before getting up at 3:10 am, again.


Edit:  (6:06 pm Sunday, December 28)

dpaxson  has deemed the article worthy of inclusion in a future issue of Idunna.

Apparently, my computer does not need a UPS.  No, for it has been decided that a button that turns an LED on and off is far more necessary for a boy's amusement.  I shall have to settle for an IPS.

I got another Republican Robocall; this time from the wonderful Sarah Palin.  She wanted to remind me that she and John McCain needed my help, and that the polls were almost closed.

F*ck you, Sarah Palin.  Voting to get her or her ilk into or even near power would be like me voting for Charlemagne, or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  She's a Christian Dominionist and engages in Pentacostal Spiritual Warfare against enemies of her god.  Once more with feeling.

F*CK.

YOU.

SARAH PALIN!!!


Edit:  Oh yeah, and she's a freaking moron, too.

1. Stop talking about politics for a moment or two.

2. Post a reasonably-sized picture in your LJ, NOT under a cut tag, of something pleasant, such as an adorable kitten, or a fluffy white cloud, or a bottle of booze. Something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS.

3. Include these instructions, and share the love.

OK, does anyone have audio editing experience, of the speech variety, not the musical type?  If so, can someone please explain how the Hel they did this?

This morning a got a phone call at about 7:20.  In my pre-caffeinated haze, I thought that the girl on the phone was telling me that she fostered Medbh, our former lab, that I took to the shelter on Monday, and that Medhbh had mysteriously died over the night.  It turns out that she was actually talking about my parents' dog Fritz, a 10 year old golden retriever that she was pet sitting on weekends instead of him being shut-up in the Kennel the whole time, while my 'rents are off in Egypt for three weeks.  I was the emergency contact.  Apparently he just laid down and died during the night. 

Unfortunately, he is/was (I'm not quite sure what tense to use) a big dog, and she needed my help to get him to the Kennel.  I'm not going into the details right now for the sake of the squeemish, but I might put it behind a cut later.

I'm not going to tell my parents yet, I'll wait unitl their trip is nearly over, and then send them a message instructing them to call me when they get back in the country. 

He was a good dog.  He'll be missed.