ACW Episode 190 – Recovery slowing me down

I will color this later. It has taken me all week to get this done. The doc took out my stitches last Friday and told me to get back to some of my regular activities, so I did and now I'm paying for it. Been in the pool twice this week, plus helped out with an all-day Girl Scout event on Saturday and ran my troop meeting yesterday. And of course, I have physical therapy three times a week. Today was especially brutal. Niw I'm very, very tired. So I didn't even color this strip, just got it inked and threw it up on the web. Sorry, but one day I will eventually get back to my usual routine.

 

ACW Episode 189 – Feed me, Pixie!

Click on the thumbnail above to view the full size webcomic!

Oh Pixie, I love you so much. Thank you for taking care of your poor, invalid mother. And for always providing plenty of fodder formthis webcomic. If it weren't for you and your sister, I wouldn't have anything to draw most weeks.

I'm still recovering from my ACL reconstruction surgery. I feel a lot better than I did last week, but I still have problems sleeping at night. I just can't get comfortable. The physical therapists say I'm doing really well, but it's going to be a while before I'm pain-free. I've been taking percoset to help me sleep at night, but it knocks me out for most of the next day too. And I'm still sleeping on the couch, since there's no way I could share a bed with Hubster and actually sleep. I can't tell you how much I wish that were otherwise.

On the upside of things, I am able to get some work done, though most of what I do is done on the iPad. I've been doing the webcomic on the iPad, and I like the end result. I'm working on a lot of zombie drawings too, plus I've been doing a lot of crochet. But I still can't make it up into my office to do a lot of the things I'd normally do.

So there you go. I'm still alive. We'll see how I keep going.

 

ACW Episode 188 – Knee Surgery!

Click on the thumbnail above to view the full-sized webcomic!

I had planned to post this earlier today, but then I went to physical therapy for 2 hours and when I got home I crashed for 3 hours and then I had to spend another hour doing all those physical therapy exercises again. So now I'm exhausted again and collapsed back on the couch. Fun!

The good news is that I can feel my girl parts again. Yay!

I don't know what I'm going to do about all my other regular posts, including Rats! as I can't get up to my office to scan anything in now. It was tough to deal with stairs before but it's impossible right now. I'll see what I can work out, but you all may just get stuck with whatever weird stuff I come up with while I'm recooperating on the couch.

Anyway, have fun. I'm going to crash again now.

 

ACW Episode ?? – Oh, the horror!!

Personally, I think this is one of the best self portraits I've ever done.

I apologize for the lateness of this week's webcomic, and for the general lack of posts this week. Last weekend, I went camping with several volunteers for outdoor training with Girl Scouts. While participating in some adventure games, I hit an uneven patch of ground and my knee went “POP! POP!” And that was that. Yours truly went down like Moses in the fifth.

So this week, I'm hobbling around the house on crutches. I'm avoiding flights of stairs as much as I can, which means I'm not getting up to the office where my scanner is. So everything on the blog is going to be dne in the iPad for a while.

Anyway, about this week's webcomic. I love candy, especially chocolate. Especially peanut butter cups. In fact the only thing, I love more than peanut butter cups is very fancy dark chocolate. So every year at Halloween, the Hubster buys all this candy. And then he goes off trick-or-treating with the girls while I stay home with this big bowl of candy that I HAVE TO GIVE AWAY TO ANY YARD APE WHO SHOWS UP AT MY DOOR!!

So. Now I have a bum knee and no candy. Except for the stuff I managed to stash away before the trick-or-treaters showed up, and that stuff is all mine. Isn't that right, my precioussssssss…

Hopefully I'll be back to regular posting next week. Until I am, it's Personal Cartoon Drawing Month (better known as PerCaDraMo) again this month, which means I'm drawing cartoons every day, so those should show up here. Enjoy!

Instructions for surviving post-con crud

Step one: DO NOT GO SWIMMING IN A FREEZING COLD POOL THE MORNING AFTER YOU GET BACK FROM THE CON. Just trust me on this one. Don't be that stupid. Please.

Step two: As soon as you get back from the FREEZING COLD POOL OF DOOOOOOOOOOOM, get plenty of chicken brother, noodles, chickpeas and spicy diced tomatoes and throw all that stuff together in the slower cooker with a bit of garlic on high. Leave it there to stew for a few hours.

Step three: Make a huge cup of instant Lipton chicken noodle soup. Drink that immediately. If you don't go “CLUCK!” when you're done, you didn't drink enough soup.

Step four: Make some hot tea with lemon and honey. Drink this while soaking in a hot bath. Hell, just take a bath in hot tea with lemon and honey. It beats the heck out of the FREEZING COLD POOL OF DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!

Step five: Go the f@&! back to bed!!! What, were you crazy when you got up this morning and decided to go for an hour long dip in the FREEZING COLD POOL OF DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM?!!! You moron. You deserve to be sick…

Step five: Get up in time to go get the kids from school. Have some hot spicy chicken soup that you left cooking in the slow cooker before you go. Try to remember to change out of your nasty “Oh look! I'm so sick, I've joined the ranks of the undead!” pajamas and put on decent clothes before you leave. Especially if the undead pajamas have cute little moose on them. Honestly, people know you're deranged, but do you really have to look the part?

Step six: Repeat step four until you no longer look, sound, or feel like one of the undead. Or until you have to go get the kids from school again. Whatever.

Yea Verily, I Have Been Puked Upon

Sam came down with the stomach flu on Tuesday. I had no idea she was sick until we pulled into the preschool parking lot to pick up Cassie. Before I could get her out of the car seat, Sam started vomiting. That kid ate a lot of grapes for lunch.

So Sam puked all over the car seat and herself. Took me fifteen minutes to clean her up enough to go into the preschool and get Cassie. Thankfully, I had a change of clothes and a lot of wipes in the diaper bag. When we got home, she puked again, right outside the front door. She got herself, the sidewalk, and me. I kept dancing around as she puked going, “Not on mommy’s suede shoes, please!” After that, it was puke off and on all evening. I spent most of the evening on the couch wearing a bath towel so Sam could lean over and puke on me as needed. Once we got past the first three pukes, she quit bringing up sour milk and grapes and just brought up a lot of spit and bile. Poor kid.

Sam is mostly recovered today, except for the occasional messy diaper (yick!). But wouldn’t you know it, I spent most of yesterday in bed with… you guessed it, the stomach flu. The first signs hit me around 5AM when I got up to do some work on the podcast. Then I had some more tummy rumblings around 8AM. Decided to forgo the exercise and went shopping instead for Valentine’s Day gifts. By noon, I was home puking in the bucket. So much for Valentine’s Day.

I swear that’s like the fourth holiday in a row that I’ve spend sick in bed. I hope I don’t come down with anything really nasty for my birthday next week.

Blergh!

It’s My Kid Who’s Sick, So Why Do I Feel Half-Dead?

The week got better and then it got worse. I managed to get through Halloween and get a smidgen of work done and also get Cassie in for her flu shot, which is very ironic because she was okay on Wednesday, when I did plenty of work, but she came down with the flu on Thursday and now I can’t seem to get Jack done. Well, not entirely true. I am getting a lot of TV watching in, catching up on all my favorite shows like Sesame Street, the Wiggles, Doodle Bops… I frikkin’ hate Doodle Bops!

To top things off, I don’t even look human right now. Since Cassie is sick, I’m having to take care of her and Sam all day long, and even with the non-stop TV marathon we’ve been running, I can’t find time for myself. So I look U-G-L-Y (You ain’t got no alibi, you UGLY!). I’m running around in ratty old sweats, trying to find a little time for exercise. I’d like to do some karate practice but the best I’ve been able to do is ride the bike for fifteen minutes today and then jitterbug around the house while putting away laundry. The jitterbug would be a great mood booster if I could avoid looking in a mirror. My hair desperately needs to be washed, I’ve got crust in my eyes and circles under them from staying up yet again with Sam all night… Can someone explain to me why, oh gods why, an infant will cry for nineteen minutes (my limit is twenty) then just as you’re about to go in and get her, mysteriously go quiet? Only to start up again the moment your head hits the pillow, of course.

And then there’s the cats. I don’t know what’s up with those three, but I’m gonna start pulling off their little arms and legs if they don’t stop having the “All-Night Fight And Meow Fest” in my bed while I’m trying to sleep. Talk about plucking my nerves. I’m just about to doze off when one of the little twerps decides it’d be a good time to wrestle with the window blinds, thus making enough racket to wake me and the baby, who will then proceed to cry for nineteen minutes before mysteriously going quiet again.

Ugh. Cassie’s temperature is still over 100, so we’ll be home all day again today. She’s getting bored though, and wants to go to the playground. I may take her out for a bit after lunch, if I can pull myself together so I don’t look quite so much like Quasimodo. And maybe, just maybe, if I can get her to take a nap this afternoon, I’ll get some writing done. Maybe.

Today’s artwork is another self-portrait, this one done in Macromedia’s Flash. I wish I looked this good right now.

Self-portrait, 31 October 2006.

Living With A Sick Baby

Well, the grandparents have been here since Wednesday, and it’s been non-stop activity since they arrived. We’ve been shopping, sight-seeing, playing, arguing, cooking, eating, etc., etc. So that’s probably why I didn’t notice Sam had a fever until yesterday.

Now Sam is not one to make a fuss, not like her sister. Sam will cry a little, maybe whine, but not out-and-out howl like Cassandra does when she’s unhappy. And I expected to see a little whining and fussiness from my darling baby with all the commotion going on in the house. So this fever kind of slipped under the radar because Sam was doing exactly what I expected her to do. But the fussiness got a little worse than normal, so even though she didn’t feel warm to me, I decided to check her temperature last night and whoops! There it was, 102.5 degrees.

I gave her some infant’s Tylenol and a bath and then we both got into our jammies and I took Sam to bed with me. I went down with her at 7 PM, thinking once she fell asleep, I’d be able to get back up, tuck her into her bassinet and go watch some TV with my folks. Never happened. Sam latched onto me to nurse and didn’t break suction until sometime around midnight (that’s five hours, folks!). The she nursed again at 2 AM, 3 AM, 5 AM, and 6 AM. She was in her bassinet from 3 to 5 AM, so I managed to get two hours of sleep, but that’s been about it. I got up at 6:30 to help Michael with Cassie, and then I had a little breakfast with Sam still in my arms, trying to latch on through my pajama top. After that, I gave her another bath, put her in some clean jammies, and we both crawled back into bed so she could nurse some more and I could steal a few Z’s.

That’s about all the sleep I’ve had. Once Sam unlatched, I tried putting her back in her bassinet, but she woke up and started to cry. So I let her sit in her bouncy chair and watch while I took a bath. I was hoping she’d give me enough time to soak my spine until it no longer looked like a question mark (as a result of sleeping hunched around an infant all night), but she started fussing, so now I’m hunched over her again as I sit and type this blog entry.

Michael is off at work. Cassie is at preschool. Mom and Dad decided to head out for one last trip to Barnes and Nobles and I did my best not to cry as they went shopping without me (waaaaaaaaah!). I am at least dressed and clean and I even got my teeth brushed. Once I’m done with this blog entry, I’m considering doing some shopping online for a new set of nipples because Sam has worn out the pair I currently own.

Not much else going on. Michael leaves this afternoon for Huntsville, Alabama and my parents head out for Arkansas tomorrow morning. I’m going to be on my own with a sick baby and a cranky preschooler for the rest of the week. I am so screwed.

***

If you close your eyes and imagine very hard, I am sure you will see the lovely cartoon I worked on this weekend. It’s a redrawing of the last entry’s work, only done in pen and ink, instead of digital. It looks very cool, and someday I may actually be able to put Sam down long enough to scan it in and display it here on the blog. Won’t that be cool?