Racking and pitching

I racked the blackberry wine today. Racking, for the uninformed, is siphoning the wine off the dead yeast slurry that forms at the bottom of the primary fermentation vessel. It isn't finished; it goes into another vessel for about six weeks or so to finish the slower second fermentation. One transfers the wine by siphon to avoid oxidation. After about five minutes, I found myself energetically noting mentally that NEXT TIME I do a fruit wine or melomel I by-God use the pulp bag. The siphon kept getting clogged, and some of the fruit went into the secondary, which I didn't want to happen so much, and it was all in all a pain in the ass. But it's in the dark cabinet with a sign to work on it again in January.

In other news, I felt good enough to do a thorough clean of my front room... and I mean -clean-. Moved furniture, damp-mopped the wood flooring, swept the carpet thoroughly. I ran out of steam at the 7/8 done mark, when I was down to putting away everything I'd piled on the couch, but I can do that tomorrow before I start the bread, or while it's rising or something. Once I get things clean keeping them so won't be so laborious, especially since Bear had His Revelation.

That was interesting. He looked at me and said, "You know, it's at least half my fault that the house is in this shape. I come in, take my socks off, and just toss them around, leave pop cans sitting around...I'm going to stop doing that." I about cried. And he is doing better. He toes his socks off, leans over, picks them up, and asks where there's a basket of dirty laundry, and very carefully puts all his dirty clothes in it. I still have to un-ball the dirty socks, but I'm not complaining. Him being conscious of it makes it easier on me and the kids, too, because I'm not tempted to just say "to hell with it".

By George, I think we've got it!

Today was Payday. Payday happens twice a month and despite my being better at budgeting than I was when I married Bear (necessity being a very sharp teacher) payday still often feels like a spendthrift blowout, never mind that everything is on a list. Which meant that today I got my medications refilled, and got the new one that I was given for the probable Meniere's Disease today. Thank all the gods for the discount pharmacy, is all I have to say. It cuts my drug costs by about half to two-thirds. And I am also fortunate that my second-most expensive drug just became available in generic. I am not compliant with my most expensive drug because, duh, it is expensive, and while I need a sleeping pill we cannot afford better than three hundred a month for the stinking thing.

But anyway. I got the Antivert and lo and behold, it seems to work! Fancy that! I don't know if I am going to have any of what I term "type 2" side effects (Type one being the sort that are immediately obvious and are a problem)...you know, the ones where you realize, "Oh, the shaking is really a pain in the ass, and it started when I started taking Suchandso....this is not going to work", since I've only taken it for a half day. But I am cautiously optimistic.

The one bad thing I have noticed is that being an antihistamine it does the on-off switch thing. It does not trail off the way pain meds do. Like a cold medicine, one moment I'm standing at the salad bar wondering why the hell everyone assumes everyone eats dressings on their salads, and the next minute I am DIZZY! and grabbing the bar to stay upright. Right, I guess this has a six hour duration. Memo to self: take drug after five minutes fortyfive seconds, because that really sucks. This may be something where I need to discuss it with my doctor, but I'll hold off and see how things go.

I got to thinking that maybe I'm close to having everything either medicated or worked around, and it's kind of unsettling. You get used to the fog. You get used to the disability and its demands. Everyone around you does. And, I've been sick a LONG TIME. I have had one problem or another and sometimes multiple since I was thirteen years old. In other words, I've been sick longer than I've been well. I've been sick longer than I have been with Bear. I've been sick longer than I've been a mother. I've been sick longer than I've been pagan. So this notion of being normal (albeit held that way through a lot of pills) is...well,it's a change. And like all changes it's simultaneously frightening and exciting.

I know how to be sick. I'm not sure I remember how to be well.

And the doctor says....

I have Meniere's disease. This is a tentative diagnosis, and she's set up an appointment with a neurologist for me. AND gave me the paperwork to get onto a reduced income/no insurance program they run.

After a bit of hyperventilating and thinking "Ohmygod I'm going to lose my hearing" I calmed down a bit. I'm basically okay with it now, and even more so since I found out the Antivert is $7/60 pills. One more bloody pill a day. Sheesh.

In other news, the gas is off and will be til next week since someone (gazes reproachfully at self) messed up on keeping track of the bill. It's not ridiculously high, but since I went to the doctor we don't have enough money to go and pay the bill with. However, we have some nice large roasters for getting hot water for dishes and baths, and a microwave and an electric skillet and toaster oven, so eating isn't an issue, and it's not so cold as to burst the pipes in here or at night. It's making my hands have fits, but that's just the way that is, and I put them under my shirt when it hurts too much. So we will manage til then.

Closer to godliness?

We have been cleaning today. Or, I should say, Bear has been cleaning and I have been sitting here and occasionally carrying laundry down and then sitting down very fast so I don't fall down. I see the doctor tomorrow about the dizziness.

In other news, the spiced apple wine is clarifying and throwing an amazing amount of sediment as it does so. I think we may need to invest in a filter before I bottle it if this keeps up. Also, the blackberry/burgundy wine is doing nicely in primary. I'll give it another week to finish before I rack it to the secondary fermenter and lock it away til January. It's very raw at the moment, but clearly alcoholic as all get out. This should make an interesting dessert wine.

A pain in the....

One of the less endearing aspects of fibromyalgia is its habit of amplifying pain from other sources.

As I have congenitally loose joints, I am forever putting things slightly out, especially if I have been reaching, bending, heaving things about...you know, acting like a normal person. Yesterday I spent an hour bent over the bathtub, reaching, contorting myself in strange ways, all in the process of washing our three cats. (They have forgiven me now. Mostly.) I woke up today, sat up on the edge of the bed, and stood up and found out that I had strained a muscle in my gluteal region, and my hamstrings too.

Sitting hurts. Standing hurts. Walking...I am very nearly dragging one leg, because in walking my calf on that side gets into the act. I therefore got very little done of what I had planned to do today. Still, I got one box of miscellaneous crap sorted out and mostly put away, and some laundry put away. I did not get my hair colored, which rather annoys me. I prefer to be a redhead instead of a brunette, because otherwise I look as if I'm trying to go Goth.

Ah well. Perhaps tomorrow morning if I bat my eyelashes and make my husband waffles he will be willing to put the color on my head for me and save my shoulders.

An Introductory Posting

Who am I? My name is Ned. I do not like...

Oh, sorry. Too much Doctor Seuss.

I'm a thirtysomething woman in a town near Indianapolis, Indiana. Married to Bear for twelve years now, we have two children...both boys, hereafter referred to as Elder and Younger.

I called this blog Life in Fog, because I have fibromyalgia. It affects my memory, my perception, and my thinking. In short, I live in a fog. Some days it lifts.

I am an active participant in the Society for Creative Anachronism, do some copyediting, and sew, cook, research, make wine, and do various other nice old-fashioned female skills, and a few just useful things. Oh, and I am the opener of doors and fetcher of food and provider of laps for three cats.