DH insisted that my last post needed a follow-up, so here you go.

NSF grant proposals were due yesterday. So, Sunday night, I stayed up working until 5:30am. DH, an incorrigible early-riser, had the nerve to say, "good morning" when I got into bed.

I slept for about 2.5 hours.

I got in to work and worked pretty much non-stop until about 3:30pm, when I finally turned in my proposal and had my lunch.

Then I went and auditioned for a play.

And I would have crashed as soon as I got home, but DH was laundering the bed sheets. I couldn't stay grumpy at him, though, because the new mattress pad and warm, clean sheets were too cozy for me to even stay awake to be grumpy.

On a completely different note, is there anyone out there who knows how to get google to unlock my blog on blogspot that's been labeled as spam? They've been taking their sweet time about reviewing it.

Yesterday:

Woke up at 4am in California to get the airport and catch my flight back home.

Got home at around 4:45pm Eastern time.

The house was full of cub scouts banging nails into wood. My mother had arrived from Chicago at around 4pm, but (wisely) decided to do a bit of shopping until the scouts cleared out.

At 5:30, it was time to head over to the play that Son the Elder and I were performing in and that my mom had come in to see.

Got back home around 11:30pm.

Today:

My mom headed back to Chicago. Took Son the Younger to a birthday party. Desperately trying to concentrate on the NSF proposal which is due TOMORROW OMG. Not worrying about job applications that I will need to work on as soon as the proposal is turned in.

I feel like I've gone right passed stressed out into some weird zen state of mind fueled by caffeine and adrenaline and I'll crash hard if I stop too long to think about how much I have to do.

Then again, my mom is the one who flew out for a visit that lasted less than 24 hours. I think crazy runs in the family.

I lost my mobile phone last month and finally got around to replacing it over the weekend. Tells you how much I use it. I was inspired to write this haiku:

At last, a new phone!
But, I've lost all my contacts.
Send me your number?

You can email me at astra.nomer at gmail dot com.

I am sick with flu-like symptoms.

99% of flu cases in my state are H1N1. So if I'm 50% sure I have the flu, does that mean that I have a 49.5% chance of having H1N1?

I really can't afford to get sick right this week, darn it!

1) My kids' school was originally going to offer seasonal flu vaccines to all students, but it has cancelled the program because 99% of flu cases in our state have been H1N1. So I'm 99% sure that what they had a couple of weeks ago was swine flu and we probably needn't bother getting immunized for anything at all this flu season.

2) We are going to visit my parents for the weekend, and it's not even a long weekend for us. On the plus side, since my parents are making us visit them now, we're not going to go for Xmas.

3) My play opens two weeks from today, and we're so doomed.

4) The job market is too tough for me to wrap my brain around right now. I'm just going to stick my fingers in my ears and sing LA LA LA LA LA LA while I write my applications.

5) A new postdoc here just told me, "you're on the job market? But I thought you had a permanent position here." I never know how to take that. Is it a compliment because my accomplishments are so obvious? Or is it just that I look old?

6) My new office has a motion sensor device that turns off every few minutes if all I'm doing is typing on the computer. It is Driving. Me. Nuts.

7) Seven is supposedly a lucky number. If I think of an item to go here, will it bring me luck? Oh I know: the conference I'm on the organizing committee for is the same week as hell week for my play. It never rains but it pours!

Looking at our schedule for October, I decided that the only time this month we'd be able to do our annual pumpkin picking trip was yesterday, so off we went.

Apple picking was a little disappointing because most of the trees were heavily picked over by the time we got there. There were a lots of clusters of apples way up high out of reach, but there were very few ladders and lots of apple pickers, and the kids were uneasy about picking apples from dad's shoulders, so we did as best we could. We still managed to get about a full bushel of apples.

The farm had a big fall festival setup going, complete with hayride and straw bale maze, so DH took Son the Younger on the hayride and I took Son the Elder to the maze. The straw bale maze is taller than StE, but shorter than me, so even though StE took off and disappeared quickly, I still managed to catch up on him and surprise him a couple of times.

We had a lunch of Too Much Greasy Food (including apple fritters, mmmm) and went off to the pumpkin patch. The rule was they had to get pumpkins they could carry, so StY got the smallest pumpkin, I got one slightly larger than that, and both DH and StE got Really Huge ones. 70 lbs of pumpkins all together.

I also got a couple of sugar pumpkins and one enormous Hubbard squash for eating. I cooked one of the sugar pumpkins last night, and it is sweet and yummy. We'll see if it sticks around long enough to make it into a pie.

StY says he wants pumpkin pie, but he then often says he wants something, but then doesn't eat it when actually confronted with it. StE says he wants pumpkin and apple pie, but I can't see how that would work. I think I'll just have to make one of each, and if they don't like them, then hey, more for me.

Yesterday was the deadline to submit abstracts for January's AAS meeting in Washington, DC. Accordingly, I whipped up my abstract yesterday afternoon and submitted it, noting that the website was behaving awfully sluggishly.

I ought to have procrastinated a little more because a couple of hours later, they extended the deadline until Monday.

It seems that they are expecting record turnout at this meeting, so maybe 4000 people? You might interpret this to mean that with the successful Hubble Servicing Mission and the launches of Herschel and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter this year, astronomy is really booming and this meeting should be really exciting.

Unless you're a cynic like me.

What's the real reason people flock to the AAS January meeting? Why is it so much bigger than the summer meeting? Because it's the place to go and present when you're on the job market. By the summer meeting, hiring season is over. What with the number of cancelled job searches last year and the paltry number currently being advertised on the AAS Job Register, I have the feeling that this AAS meeting is going to be awash with desperate astronomers like me, all but holding up signs saying, "WILL REDUCE DATA FOR FOOD."

I'm hoping that I've escaped the virus that laid my kids low all last week, which was quite likely to have been swine flu (sorry, that name is much easier for me to keep straight than nH1N1!!1one!! or whatever it is). However, I woke up this morning with a sore throat. No fever, anyway, but still, being sick is miserable no matter what form it comes in.

In the last couple of weeks I have lost:

1) several re-usable shopping bags, including the one of our really nice large canvas ones,
2) the laptop charger that I keep at work, and
3) my cellphone.

The shopping bags I know I left under the shopping cart, but they were gone when I ran back to look for them. The last two items are gone without a trace. *poof*

Last week the kids both came down with what was probably swine flu, and I'm not sure I'm succeeding in keeping it at bay from myself.

The sys admin is currently taking apart my desktop computer, which I just bought a few months ago.

I want a re-do on the month of September.

Yup, that's right, I had surgery today.

It wasn't for anything serious: I had a couple of small annoying growths removed. The whole process was more of a production that I thought it would be considering the size of the bumps.

Here are some random thoughts about it:

- Anaesthesia is totally black magic. Good stuff, though.
- Friendly nurses and technicians are key. When you're relaxed enough to chit chat, you're relaxed enough to ask questions.
- There is nothing quite like a fresh heated blanket when you're sitting around in one of those backless hospital gowns.

This is for vfish:

From Photo Library

From left to right: blackberry-strawberry jam, peaches, applesauce.

Mind you, this is not nearly all the fruit we picked. Also, I did not win the pie contest. Alas.

It's the 1st of the month! Time to check the AAS Job Register for new job ads!

Let's see now, I'm interested in a faculty position, so I'll scroll down there....

uh-oh. Too bad I'm not a cosmologist.

I wonder how DH feels about moving to Germany...

School started on Monday, and Son the Younger started kindergarten! It's really great having both kids in the local public school. First, it means no more tuition payments! (At least for another 10 years, anyway...) Secondly, the public school is both closer to home and starts a bit later than StY's preschool. This means I can leave the house an entire half hour later. It doesn't sound like much, but I get up in the morning and it feels like I have all this time to get myself and the kids ready for the day. Some mornings, I can even quickly check my email before I go. It means I get into work a bit later, but it turns out my brain gets in gear a lot quicker when I can take my time getting ready in the morning, so I'm actually being productive at an earlier hour.

I should also mention that StY is loving kindergarten, at least these first two days of it. StE seems to be having a good time in 3rd grade, too, but he's trying to play it cool.

We went fruit picking yesterday. Our take includes:

• 1 bushel of peaches
  
• 2 quarts raspberries
  
• 3 quarts blackberries
  
• 1/2 bushel of apples
  

Probably over 70 lbs of fruit in all.
The peaches are particularly excellent.

Now I'm all set to make my entries for the department pie contest Friday!

Last Saturday morning, we headed out to Six Flags Great Adventure to spend some time with my brother-in-law and his family. Just as I was heading to the door, I mis-stepped off the stairs and twisted my foot horribly. It happened so fast that I can't even tell you quite what happened to it, but it sure hurt like hell.

I grabbed some ice and an ace bandage and kept my foot elevated for the 3-hour drive, and it was okay at first. But after a full day of hobbling around on it, it hurt so much that I needed DH's help to get back to the car.

By Monday, I was able to walk on it again, but it still hurts when I do. Standing on it for any length of time aggravates it. It's definitely not sprained, since I've sprained this very ankle before, and it's not the same pain and it's in a different place, across the instep. I wonder if I've broken something. It it still hurts next week, I'll see a doctor about it.

Still, I guess it means I won't be starting up karate this week...

The son who is supposedly sick is playing downstairs by himself. He's saying,

"Don't forget, my website is double-yoo double-you double-you SLASH [something] dot org."
(emphasis his)

We might have to give him a talking to about the proper syntax for urls.

I've gotten barely anything done at work this week.

On Monday, I went to a funeral for a friend and his daughter who were killed in a car accident.

On Tuesday, I had a doctor's appointment in the morning, and my son's doctor's appointment in the afternoon.

On Wednesday, I took my kids to the dentist.

Yesterday, I actually spent a full day at work.

Today, Son the Younger is sick and I figured, well, I've lost pretty much the whole week anyway, might as well stay home with him.

Last week, I visited my parents for the week. Maybe I ought to call the whole month of August a loss at this rate.

*sigh*

Somewhere along the line, I seem to have become a theatre person. I also seem to have unleashed my inner prima donna.

( whining: you've been warned )

Anyway, I just needed to get that out of my system. I'm sure the show will be fun, and it will all be for the best, yadda yadda. Maybe someday I'll get my spotlight on the stage, just not this time around.

Someone just ran down through the woods to our back door telling us that his friend got robbed at gun point at the neighborhood park. I'm SERIOUSLY freaked out.

Update: The police arrived, everyone is physically okay. Still, nothing like having a random guy pound on your door followed by calling 911 to get the adrenaline pumping.

I just got back from the Middle Of Nowhere (i.e. visiting my parents) and haven't kept up with anything on LJ. So if anything major happened, let me know, okay? For now, you get to have my updates in a series of bullet points, each of which really merits its own post, but I just can't be bothered right now.

• I visited my parents. There was drama. My father is slowly disappearing.
  
• We saw a taping of "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" that was tons of fun.
  
• I have a bit part in a musical this fall. I'd have liked a bigger role, but
  
• I'm applying for jobs this fall.
  
• I have a funeral to go to this afternoon.
  
• I don't have any major travel plans for the next month. Yay!