10 More Good Things

The 10 Good Things post was such a nice, positive change of pace that I decided to do it again.  It's taken me even longer to come up with ten things this time ("today" means the day I wrote it, not necessarily the day this was posted), but I finally found them all!

1.  I bought two books today!  Fictionwise tweeted a discount code, and using that I was able to buy two books with my micropay account- Made to Be Broken by Kelley Armstrong and Rules Were Made to Be Broken by Lenore Black.  You'll notice that the two titles are similar.  I've had my eye on Made to Be Broken for a while now, and every time I looked it up, Rules poped up, too.  The cover caught my eye because it reminds me a lot of the cover for Mine to Take by Dara Joy.  So I read the sample, and it looked pretty good.  A m/m romcom about friends turned lovers (one of my favorite tropes), possibly with some bondage.  Works for me!  And now I've used up all but $.03 of my micropay.  It's such a relief.  I know it's weird, but that credit just sitting there was stressing me out.

2.  I drove to the Med Center for a doctor's appointment today, and although it sprinkled a bit off and on, there was no flooding or heavy rain.  That trip easily takes me 45 minutes in good weather with light traffic.  Bad weather, heavy traffic, or flooding can double or triple it.

3.  My appointment went well.  I had to tell my GI about my insurance situation, and that I'm moving.  It's silly, but I was kind of worried that she might blow me off since I'm not going to be her patient for much longer.  But she was totally understanding.  She's working with me to be sure that I'm in the best condition possible before leaving the practice, and she's going to look through her directory to find a good GI for me up north.  She's going to check Indianapolis, but she's also looking into Cleveland Clinic, which is a bit of a drive, but possibly worth it for their excellent IBD program.  (Inflammatory Bowel Disease- ie Crohn's or Ulcerative Colitis)

4.  I went to the grocery store when I got back to my side of town and bought some Summer Berry ice cream from Blue Bell.  I've been making ice cream floats with that and Sprite.  It's wrong how good they are.  Lemon ice cream with raspberry swirls and chunks of strawberry and blueberry, floating in lemon/lime soda.  I think I may have one now.

5.  When I was at the grocery store I discovered that my favorite toilet paper is on special!  I got 24 double rolls of aloe and E tp for $9.98.  As a toilet paper connoisseur, let me assure you, that's a deal.  If I weren't moving in 6 weeks or so I'd go back and stock up some more.

6.  I finally finished the baby hat I started a week or so ago.  There's a Girl Scout here in Houston who is knitting and collecting 100 baby hats for an area hospital.  I have a ton of baby yarn, and they don't take long to knit (as long as you're actually, you know, knitting on it), plus most hat patterns are pretty mindless, so I said I'd do a few.  I've already started a second hat.  (And now a couple days later I've finished the second and third hats, and I'm working on a fourth.)

7.  I emptied 2 boxes today!  A small pile of clothes get to move to the sell/donate pile, and a big bag of trash is now at the front door waiting to be hauled out.  I'm getting better at this letting go stuff.  Most of that bag of trash is stuff I would have kept a month ago, like old high school literary magazines and class pictures from elementary school.  Good bye!

8.  Here's another slightly weird one, but I'm truly grateful for it: Crystal deodorant stick.  This stuff is like a miracle.  A combination of the miserable heat and changed body chemistry from all my meds has made finding a deodorant problematic for me in the last few years.  Not only do I get smelly easily, but something in the deodorants I'd been using was causing rashes and miserable itching.  With Crystal?  No itching, no odor.  And no flowery perfume smells, either.  (Which may have been part of the problem with the itching.)  My arm pits now smell like nothing but clean arm pits for up to 24 hours.  It's amazing.  And the product itself is kind of interesting.  Basically, it's a smooth hunk of crystal (hence the name).  You have to dampen it, and then you rub it under your arms just like you would any other deodorant.  The company website says it runs $6.99 and lasts up to a year.  I can believe it!  I grabbed mine on sale at Walgreens for $2.99 a couple weeks ago.  After being burned by another pricey product I wasn't interested in spending a bundle for another experiment. (Tom's of Maine.  Terrible stuff.  Not only did my pits still stink, but each pit was producing it's own distinct odor, both of them vile.)  But Crystal really works for me, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone, especially anyone with sensitivities or health issues.

9.  I'm really enjoying the new season of The Closer.  And since they have the new episodes available on the TNT website, I'll still be able to watch it when I cancel my cable tomorrow.  (I was going to cancel today, but I decided to wait a few more hours so I could catch the new episode.)

10.  My critique group!  Knowing that we're all brainstorming for future stories, and that I won't be around much longer, we've switched from every other or every third week meetings to every week.  It's so great to get out of the house for a couple hours and chat with friends, even if I'm totally worn out afterwards.  And there is always much laughing and telling of stories.  I'm amazed how much stuff we manage to accomplish in between the off-topic chatter.