I have, apparently, been far too blasé about the fact that I have so far not been sick this winter (unlike in previous years, where I have constantly battled the sinus infection from hell for weeks on end). Yesterday I spent the entire day with a feeling of impending doom as the pressure in my sinuses grew and grew. Add to that the fact that my eyes were dry and irritated all day, and I think I spent most of yesterday looking as if I was quite likely on something (due to the slightly reddened eyes). This might not have ordinarily been a problem, except that yesterday I was in Oakland attending a meeting at the office of the president of an extremely large statewide organization, and I would have preferred to look a little less like I hadn't slept in the last two weeks.

I finally gave up after choir practice last night and took the last of the decongestants we have in the house. I figured maybe I would be lucky and the spiffy side effect of insomnia would kick in while I was already asleep and so I would just sleep right through it. But it is 1:30 in the morning now and I have spent the last 45 minutes lying in bed wide awake, my brain racing furiously in a bazillion useless directions, so…so much for that theory.

At least my sinuses no longer feel as if they are trying to kill me by making my head implode so I suppose a little insomnia is a small price to pay. Especially if it makes me actually sit down and write a journal entry, right?

I feel as if the days are slipping by lately and while I have been fairly busy, there really isn't much to say. I finished my socks (and wore them to work and lo, they were comfy and very blue). I started making a birthday present for my little sister, and while the yarn I am using is a huge pain to work with, the project is turning out so gorgeous that I may have difficulty not just keeping it for myself. Our sprinkler head magically fixed itself (with, I suspect, a little help from the gardeners). There are strange blue flowers growing amid the climbing roses on our side yard arbor and while I suspect that they are some kind of weed the effect of blue flowers amid the white roses is so pretty I am loathe to actually go out and hack out the offender. Spring sprung early, which means the trees in the front are full of flowers and leaves, the nutmeg scented geranium in the pot by the front door is spilling over its sides with tiny white flowers that have no scent at all (nutmeg or otherwise), and the white peach tree in the back yard went through its far-too-brief explosion in pink blossoms and will, I suspect, be even more overloaded with fruit this year than last. Sadly it is still too small to actually handle everything it wants to produce so I also suspect I shall be doing some serious culling later in the summer. I am also pondering replacing the dead pine tree in the corner with a red grapefruit tree but since that would entail actually going to a nursery and buying the tree and digging a hole and planting it, so far it has gone no further than just speculation.

Speaking of the back yard, after taking last summer mostly off from any yard improvement projects, we're starting to mull around the idea of this year finally tackling either the reading nook or the courtyard area. Since each one will require lots more lugging of large heavy stones and manual labor, I suspect that the reading nook (which is about one quarter the size of the courtyard area) will win out. Oh, and we finally found someone to come out and give us an estimate for putting in a drop-down ladder for attic access, so I am eagerly awaiting his call to set up an actual time for that. I have such plans for that attic. The instant we can finally get *into* it, the closet in the library is going to be emptied of all its piles of holiday decorations, so that my slowing growing stash of yarn will finally have a (cat-free) home of its own.

I am still wide-awake, and I am half afraid that I just may not ever get back to sleep tonight. So I think I will close this for now and go do useful things, like run a load of laundry, and load up the dishwasher, and feed the cat who is currently sitting on my chest and making it very hard to type, and pretend that when this decongestant wears off later today and the lack of sleep can finally hit me like a brick wall, that it will all have been worth it. Oh yes. I am sure of it.