I've been reading through my posts of late. Boring. I'm feeling a bit inferior, as I have been reading some very witty and insightful blogs. *sigh* Guess we can't all wax philosophical all the time. I am pumped that the spellcheck thingy is back up and running, tho. Woohoo!

I grow weary of burning the candle at both ends, but it is allowing us to see a faint glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. I've gotten caught up on a couple of bills, and managed to stay afloat on the rest. Christmas should be a little less stressful as well. Now that deadbeat #2 has resurfaced, I may not be able to sell off his stuff, but we will still auction the real estate as planned, and that should clean up a couple of bills. Once we've gotten that done, we can take a few months to pay some other stuff down, then try for a refi after the tax refund comes. Hopefully the interest rates will stay down where they are for awhile.

I've been wondering if I'm just worn out because I'm working a lot, or wearing down from all the information overload. I'm so tired of hearing about anthrax I could scream. More people were actually affected by the e. coli outbreak last year. People are so wont to panic, and it's not entirely unjustified, but I've been trying to look at it from a fatalistic point of view. I could be struck by lightning or hit by a bus tomorrow. Or I could contract anthrax. Until then, I'll try to keep a positive outlook, hug my kids a lot, and protect them as much as I can without obsessing about the things that are out of my control. Right now they are gleefully chasing each other around the bottom floor of the house. It's loud and obnoxious, and I'll let them go at it for a while.

I wonder how all of this will affect them as they grow up. The Viet Nam War did not actually end until I was 7 years old or so, and I don't ever remember seeing it on TV or hearing anything about it. My brother was in the Air Force, and saw overseas action, but all I remember about his service career was when we'd visit him on base stateside. Now I know we have 24 hour news service that was unheard of back then, but you'd think I'd remember something about an event that was so socially and politically significant. But all I know is what I learned years later, in history class, from a social studies teacher who was a VN combat vet. My kids are bombarded with images of the new conflict. They have asked occasional questions, but seem to be fairly oblivious to what's going on. It probably helps that we live in a very rural setting, not likely to be ground zero for anything short of a grain elevator fire (which can be nasty, fermenting grain and dust can ignite in a rather colorful and destructive manner, I've seen it).

On an entirely different tangent, while browsing through a "Ripley's Believe it or Not" book at grandma's today, hubs showed me some interesting pics taken of spiderwebs. Some researcher somewhere wanted to find out how spiders' ability to spin webs was affected by exposure to controlled substances. Out of hash, LSD, and caffeine, guess which screwed up their webs more. Good ol' Jolt. I'll have to see if someone out there has posted those pics to the web. Funny. There was also a chicken pulling a baby carriage, but that's another story.

The first day of standard time is screwing me up. I hate when it gets dark so early. I'd probably also hate the Sun rising at 4 am in May, but I haven't yet figured out which would be the lesser of two evils.

Well, what I lack in substance, I may have made up for slightly in volume, so I'll log off and let hubby have the Mac back to tend to some auctions. Got a cool one up for a buddy's HO train layout. Fun. Lotsa neato details.