This'n'That

My apologies, Gentle Readers, this is going to be a very stream-of-consciousness thing.

First up, YAY my mandolin has FINALLY shipped, they sent me the notice on We the 24th, which means that due to the holiday, and the weekend and so on, I will hopefully get it late next week, ie, Dec 1st-3rd, ideally. Since it's coming from Ebay, I am actually not sure where my mandolin is shipping from. The Ebay actual seller is a real musician, and their musician's shop says that they're based in Missouri. Well, all righty then. The only actual *store*, ie, retail supplier, I have ever found for this particular mandolin, however, is located in New York State, near the Hudson Valley (Adirondack Guitar, I believe their name is). So it could be coming from anywhere. All I know is that thankfully they are not using the United States Post Office to ship my instrument, thank goodness, although I haven't yet received a tracking # either like they said they would give me. I will wait until Monday, it being a holiday weekend, and then humbly ask my seller for one, since they said they would give me one. I believe they use Fedex and I hope that they package the mandolin well, I did NOT buy a case on Ebay for many reasons and Adirondack Guitar, well, let's just say that I can get the same case for about $20 less with FREE SHIPPING from the Music Center (dot com), which is even better than Amazon's pricing.

I am very excited about this. The chords etc for a mandolin are *much* easier than on my dreadnought guitar, the neck is smaller, and I believe that I will be able to more easily play specifically the 17th century dance music that I love, and that it will sound more historically correct too, which is always good. Yes, I am that dedicated to my hobby. Historic re-enacting gets inside of you in a way that is unlike many other (though not all) hobbies and eventually you become willing to spend inordinate amounts of money on your presentation, because you have fallen in love with living in a different time in history. Put it this way. I would never have thought about buying a mandolin, largely because I didn't think I could play it, until I picked up the guitar again and that happened not just because of Great Big Sea but also because at the same time, my living history group had a sudden deflux (outflux?) of very necessary musicians. I had to fill the gap, and so, the guitar, because it was what I had available. Then, I did my 17th century homework and realized a mandolin would much better suit, and my long-buried desire to learn some bluegrass also suddenly came to the fore, rather like some sort of emotional or physical breakthrough, in another context!

I already have a name for my mandolin too :) Those of you who are Great Big Sea fans reading this might think that I took the name from their recent song Have a Cuppa Tea, but I didn't. The name was inspired by a very vivid memory I have of a pretty red-headed hillbilly girl in a Warner Bros cartoon -- Rosalie. Speaking of which, if anybody knows the cartoon girl I am talking about and can find a picture of her or know which cartoon she's in, I would be eternally grateful. I could have sworn she was in Hill-Billy Hare, but apparently not.

I've recently been writing a fan fic with a friend and I have never tag-teamed my writing before, it's kind of fun. Although, given that she lives in another country we have to do it via a chat program and since the POV is currently in 1st person (for both characters, which makes it interesting) it's really more like a role play than writing a story. But I'm having fun with it.

I am still trying to figure out how to get to the gym and do the hours of ChaCha I need to do every day AND have time for music AND do this writing with my friend, and it's really not going very well. I haven't practiced my guitar for weeks and I've pretty much lost my calluses. I just can't figure out how to do everything. Since I work from home you 'd think it would be easier to do all of this (I mean, it's not like it's any more to do than a regular person has to do) but it's not.

and recently my sleep phase disorder has really been taking over and I have been sleeping from about 8am to about 4pm, which absolutely does NOT work for getting all the stuff that I mentioned in the prior paragraph accomplished.

I came home from Thanskgiving yesterday absolutely exhausted. I forced myself to do an hour of ChaCha and made another $4 (well under my daily necessary minimum but well . . . at least I'm $4 closer to my goal, right?) but I really needed to get some sleep, because I was falling asleep at the keyboard. What do you do when two priorities collide like that? The compromise of at least making SOME money seemed like the best solution. Thanksgiving with my family didn't go very well, hence the exhaustion, but I've detailed that in a Facebook note so perhaps you will hear my thoughts about it later, Gentle Readers, but not right now. I want some time to process it all.

At this point in time I would like to say that I find the concept of 'Black Friday' almost physically repulsive, and definitely emotionally vile. More on that later too.

This weekend is a time to party! Had Thanksgiving on the proper Thursday with my family, then a much happier celebration of two of my dear friend's birthdays on Black Friday evening (the only money this household spends on that date, by deliberate choice), on Saturday Hubby and I get to put up our Christmas decor both inside and out, and have our own Thanksgiving dinner, and then on Sunday of this weekend, we're all going over to my mother -in-laws -- self and Hubby, bro and sis in law and their two kids, and at least one more family friend -- for *their* Thanksgiving.

My holiday heartburn has started, precipitated by the massive doses of Aleve I had to take to deal with my back *last* weekend. Which went out because like a fool, I went back to the gym after being sick and promptly worked out WAY too hard. Which meant that I lost yet another week of workout time because I had to recover from that, sigh. I think I am finally back now, though, and I will just have to take it easier, knowing that a good low-key workout every day is still helping my body achieve our goals, as opposed to trying to jump right back in where I was 6 weeks ago.

Anyway, Rolaids no longer produces the lovely all-in-one that I usually use for these 6 weeks (from Thanksgiving to New Year's -- all that forced family togetherness plus trying to get extra $$ for Christmas presents plus being forced to be extra social on top of all the usual stuff . . . In a very specific way relating to family and social requirements, I HATE the holidays) so I suspect I will be spending a bit of extra moolah this year to buy all the separate components that used to be in the Rolaids. Oh well. I'd rather do that than stay up at nights (and mornings, and noonings) with heartburn, gas, and other associated stress-induced gastric upset.

Is this getting long? I should go back to bed. I have more to talk about, but I will do that this afternoon, I think.