Hi friends,

That headline madejalook, didn’t it?

The Things and Mr. Grass Oil went back to their respective desks today and I had the house all to myself.

I also had a headache all to myself. It was pretty bad and so I’m hopeful that I’m not on the cusp of another sinus infection. The headache is still here. I am thinking of making it pay rent.

January 3 marks the day, two years ago, when I wrote my first post ever on my blog. If you’d like to read it, here is the link: taking my own advice. The blog and I have grown a lot over the past 731 (leap year – yeah, I’m that petty) days. I’ve published something close to 180 posts. That’s an average of idon’tcarehowmany posts a week.

So here we are: 2013! I’ve bitten off a lot for this year and I’m ready to go. One of the first orders of business is to edit my book. I’ve pledged to edit six pages a day which should bring me to the end of the month fairly well. If I don’t have a sinus infection.

Then I’m off to the races on re-writes. I’m old school: I’m taking a red pen to my book, tentatively titled Miriam: Recovered, for the first 31.3333 days and then I’ll go to the computer and make the changes there. I’m trying to do what I can to let it all marinate and give myself some distance. I started it a year ago, then picked it back up in June to add another 50k words to it so now I’m at 75k (190 pages) and then I hope by the end of this first round I’ll be at about 220 pages with tighter wording and better flow. I haven’t touched it since July and booooohooy, it needs some work. But it’s good… I can say that, right? It’s got a great skeleton.

The previous post I wrote was created despite the occurrence of an ocular migraine. What’s an ocular migraine you ask? Why, I’m so glad you did. It’s when your eyes do THIS to you:

First this:

I am accustomed to the floaters, I’ve had them for years (and they are benign), but what I wasn’t picking up on (it being only my second time with the phenomena) was that wasn’t going away. In fact, it got worse. What’s my first instinct to do when this was happening?

y’know… DENY IT.

My kids are gonna freak one day if I ever have a stroke… I’ll be all, “No, my arm’s not hanging there… I’m just tired. Someone type for me… and get me a straw… and hold up my face… and…” Strokes aren’t funny, I know this. But I also know that when I get sick, I’m the first to deny it. So please don’t think I’m harshing on stroke patients.

The first time I had one, in February of 2012, I had just finished up a visit with a friend. She left and I had about an hour or two before the Things came home from school. All of a sudden, my vision started doing the stuff in the little box above.

I didn’t think much of it.

About five minutes later, the field of vision was greatly reduced and I was seeing things like this:

I started to think much of it then.

That went on for about another 25 minutes. Once I’d decided I wasn’t actually having a stroke or a heart attack or was being invaded by an alien or body snatcher, I decided to do this: call the eye doctor. They made an appointment for me and then guess what?

I drove to it. Because I could still see AROUND the … the … whatever. I was totally sober. I know. That’s not what you were thinking about.

By the time I got to the optometrist’s, the symptoms had subsided to this, ‘cept I wasn’t in England:

I had to wait about another 20 minutes while my pupils dilated. By the time my eyes were fully dilated, the visual aspect of the migraine was over. Next: the head pain. I don’t get headaches, so when I do: I SUCK. I. Take. Hostages.

The crazy thing about this, is this the second time I’ve had one of these things and the headache afterward I think can last a couple days. So far, it’s lasted a couple days.

Oh, yes, I see a little lady in the back of the audience, she’s holding up her hand, she’d like to ask a question. Step up to the mic.

You want to know if I can see Jesus when I have my ocular migraine….

No. No I can’t, unless Jesus looks like a crescent-shaped shattered mirror that pulses and glows and obfuscates the clarity of whatever is between the points of the crescent. Sure… it could be Jesus. So, yea, I’ll concede that I don’t know it’s not Jesus.

No, no I don’t hear angels sing either, unless they sound like my son’s version of “Sunshine of Your Love” by Cream on his Stratocaster.

For some reason, this image comes up when I searched for ocular migraine images:

So it should not surprise you that I thought I could write a blog post while having an ocular migraine on New Year’s Eve seeing as how the last time I’d had one, I drove to the eye doctor’s.

The post wasn’t that great. (I have to say I hate it.)

Don’t judge.

No more questions.

So yeah, I’m slightly concerned about the migraines; if I get another one within the next 10 months, I’ll probably start to get more curious about them. Knowing me, it should not surprise you that I’ve begun to chart the migraines. I am keeping a journal about what’s going on before they happen. So far: nothing. No spicy food or bank hold-ups or super stressful times. My diet is good… I could always use more chocolate, so I’ll have to look into that.

. . . .

Tomorrow, Friday: FICTION! I’ll be posting my stab at the following prompt:

“Your character thinks he/she is good at something, but he/she isn’t. Something happens that makes your character realize this. What? What does your character do about it? Write the story.”

I’ve rallied some wonderful bloggers to do this with me. We will all be sharing the links to each others’ content. Who else is in on this?

Clearly Kristal, BuLaMaMaNi, It’s Dome Life, DeBie Hive, Susanne Nelson, World’s Worst Moms and me.

In the meantime, I’m gonna be over here on the couch. Try to keep it down a bit, mmmmkay?

Thank you!