Outbreak

Well, it was a pretty good Thanksgiving break, barring the (ahem) gastrointestinal troubles that plagued me on the first weekend. These troubles resulted in a trip to the hospital to rehydrate after a sleepless night spent in the bathroom, and unfortunately we missed the second half of Avenue Q. My blood pressure was 88/66 when Derek brought me in, and we found out that 5:30 AM on a Sunday is a good time to visit an emergency room--no waiting! I had thought it was food poisoning, but on returning to school, I found out that three or four other teachers had very similar symptoms the first weekend of break. Sounds like a case of a student infecting all of us at around the same time. I seem to have infected D as well, although he held up better than I did and is in the process of recovering now.

After we made it to CO (a day late), it was a good visit. A shopping highlight for me was visiting 3 thrift stores and finding 13 articles of clothing for under $100, most of which were very good quality brands like Eddie Bauer, Ann Taylor, Talbots, etc. My mom is a great thrift-store shopping partner and she joins me in appreciating a good bargain. She is also good at spotting both things that will look good on me and defects. I also found a brown corduroy jacket at Sears, an item for which I have been searching long and hard. I hardly ever shop except when I'm visiting there, so I consider the trip a great success in terms of my wardrobe. D likes it too since I spend less money at the thrift stores. I also like the feeling that I am contributing to recycling this clothing--I'm helping it get its full use before getting to a landfill. New clothing requires waste and pollution to make, while buying used clothing does not require extra waste or pollution. When I'm done with it, it will probably re-enter the thrift store market to be repurchased by someone else. Hooray for recycling and cheap (but sturdy) clothes!

New stove joy!

Our new stove will be delivered on Monday. We bought one from Sears that was pretty basic and similar to what we had. Someday I'll get a fancy stove with all the cool features, but when we'll probably only be in this place for a year and a half, it's not really worth it. We thought we might try to use the burners on our old one last night, but when we tried plugging it in again, the broiler element still came on. So, no stove top cooking until Monday. Luckily, we had a Crock-Pot recipe planned for today, which is good anyway since we are going to see my school's annual musical tonight.

I've been trying to stay off my still-injured leg--I haven't been to ballet in a couple of weeks now and I really want to go back, but I don't want to hurt myself again. I've been icing it and taking ibruprofen to keep the swelling down.

Support the writers!

I am absolutely in full support of the writers' strike. All of my favorite shows (except the dancing ones) are my favorites because of their exceptional writing. Anything by Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly), Scrubs, West Wing, Gilmore Girls, Heroes, House, Colbert Report...these shows are all very different, but they have in common incredible writing that makes me laugh, cry, and think. I hope that the studios can stop being greedy long enough to realize that they don't have a means of making any profit without good writing. And writers should be getting a fair cut when their work is used in any medium--DVD or digitally.

So, strike as long as it takes, writers! If our favorite shows have to go into reruns, it will give D and me a chance to get some shows on DVD from Netflix that we've been meaning to watch anyway...which is just more excellent writing that we will certainly appreciate.

Good news and bad news

The good news: not only am I a parent in The Nutcracker, I'm playing Clara's mom. The lady who was doing it was apparently not doing a great job, so I am filling her spot. I have a little more acting to do than the "regular" parents and I start all the parent dances. I am just so happy to be performing again!! D is also joining the cast, as they were desperate for guys and he agreed as the good sport he is.

The bad news: we may very well have to buy a new stove. We were making a casserole last night when the stove beeped, and we found that the broiler had come on all by itself and the only way to turn it off was to unplug the stove. This happened to us once before and the problem went away after unplugging; however, this time when we plugged it back in the same thing happened. It is right now unplugged and we are leaving it that way until we figure out what to do. D looked up the error code online and it's likely that the part needed to fix the stove would be almost half the cost of a new one. On one hand, we will be moving in about a year and a half, so it kind of stinks to have to buy a whole new stove. On the other hand, having the broiler come on at random is a really scary prospect, and I'd rather be sure that the problem is fixed with a new stove than worry that the old stove will do the same thing again. Grr. Between this and the new tires we will be putting on the car shortly, my recent raise has pretty much been negated.

Also in irritating news: we finally got around to spending a gift card from last Christmas to buy a new ceiling fan for our bedroom to replace the ugly thing that's there now. Unfortunately, when we were taking the old one off to install the new, we found that there is no wiring box. This is the exact same problem we had when we installed a new fan in the living room, and we are starting to suspect that the previous owner did all of these replacements himself without consulting an electrician. I am really not comfortable with installing a new, heavier fan with no wiring box. So there goes more money...