SassyBlonde

I promised y'all I'd give you the whole scoop, so here it is.

As I said, I spent this past weekend in the hospital, much to my surprise. I was coming out of a salon where I'd stopped to buy some of my favorite lotion, and shortly after I felt the door close behind me I remember waking up on the concrete sidewalk, looking up into the extremely tan faces of the girls from the salon. Now, I'm sure they're very nice people, but it's a little unnerving to wake up and find yourself in the care of someone whose next comment is "Like, oh my God, here's, like, some ice. Don't move, K?" My first thought was "Oh my GOD, am I in hell?!?!?-- because I'm surrounded by a pack of valley girls..."

Wow. Happy to say that my blood glucose level is down to under 200. Whew. (Normal is between 80 and 140).

Hubby's making me take the week off work to get this thing under control sorta. I'm not complaining, but I might as well be on the Atkins diet. I'm avoiding carbs like it's my job.

Sugar free orange Jello you say? Damn skippy. Make it with raspberry seltzer. Mmmmmm. Or SF Lemon Jello, made with iced tea. Yummy.

Most days I wake up feeling marginally normal. Then at some point during the morning I begin to feel lightheaded, get a headache, shake uncontrollably. Before breakfast, I count pills out into my palm like an octogenarian from a pill organizer. Two hours later, I race to the bathroom in a desperate attempt to outrun my GI tract, and spend a half-hour there praying that at some point I'll be able to leave. I can't go running anymore without a fanny pack full of carbs, paraphanalia, a cell phone and a small torture device. And the sad part? All this when I'm well in control of the disease.

I'm twenty-six years old. If this disease is affecting me this way now, I don't want to know what I'll be like at my grandmother's age. Heart failure, kidney failure, liver failure, blindness, circulation problems.

Someone's got to find a cure for this disease.

So after almost a year of rigorously controlling my diabetes, I decided to check out Human for Sale again. With the same factors except for better weight, the D word only brought my sale price down by $132K! It's kind of nice to think about it that way I guess-- you can't even begin to buy a house for that around here.

Check out your price at HumanForSale.com.

Those of you who have known me for a while know that about two years ago I was diagnosed as a type-II diabetic. Well, tomorrow I have to go experience my first official side-effect of the disease.

Yet another crap-tastic dentist visit to get another filling. Since I was diagnosed with this crappy disease, I have had ten, count them on your little fingers, fillings or replacements fillings. It's always heartening to hear your dentist exclaim, "Wow, this is amazing, (assistant), just look at the size of this cavity!"

I brush three times daily, floss, use a Water-Pik and Listerine. Cripes, and now I even use super-souped-up-prescription-only-toothpaste. Feh.

Dentures, I'm sure, will look very good to me this time tomorrow.

Well, tonight is my last hurrah as a changeable musician.

Tomorrow morning I start insulin, which means I have to get up early, same time every morning. Feh. (This is, however, my choice- I could do it at any time of day, I just choose early morning because it's the only time I can virtually guarantee I'll be home.)

Goodbye, sleeping until 10:30. Goodbye playing Guild Wars until 2 AM.

But hello to not losing my teeth or eyesight and finally being able to sleep like a normal human being. :)

It isn't very often that I complain about my disease, but I've had it about up to *here* (insert high-on-the-totem-pole-body-part here) with listening to other people's petty hurts today.

I have Type I diabetes.

Everyone out there has heard of this disease, probably has known someone with it or someone who knew someone with it. They've heard about the needles, the finger-sticking, the constant carb counting. They've seen the commericals with happy, healthy-looking children or adults running around saying how their life has changed because of wonderful advances in diabetes treatment. They put it out of their minds. They think it's no longer as big a deal.

Let me tell you what hasn't changed. Let me issue you a wake-up call.

I wake up every day and begin another obsessive compulsive relationship with food.
I have to count every single crumb that goes into my mouth. (Think about that for a minute. Really think about it. Most people never do.) If I fail to do the above, I risk blindness, kidney failure, heart disease, amputation, or death. If I do the above, I still deal with extreme fatigue, headaches, blurred vision, tremors and mood swings.

If I catch a cold, scratch my knee, stub my toe, get a yeast infection or foot fungus, I lose control over my disease. If I get my period, lose too much sleep, work out too hard, eat too much, or sit in class too long, I lose control over my disease. Sometimes I lose control over my disease for no reason I can pinpoint.

If I lose control of my disease, I could end up at the very least flat on my back, and more likely in the hospital, in a coma, or dead.

On good days I can look forward to at least ten needles of different shapes and sizes throughout the day. That can double on bad days.

On good days I tire out in half the time of a normal person. On good days I have to take naps to keep up with a normal person. On good days I dream so vividly I feel like I've been on a treadmill instead of asleep. On good days I control my routine, but I still have to stay in a routine.

On bad days I become incapable of coherent thought. On bad days I shouldn't workout and probably shouldn't drive. On bad days my feet swell up like balloons until the skin nearly splits. On bad days my joints feel like they are in a vise. On bad days I don't sleep. On bad days my routine controls me.

So just for the next day or two, I don't want to hear about your colds, your trials and tribulations at the doctor, your aches, your pains, your headaches. I won't bother you with mine on a daily basis. But next time you feel inclined to complain to me at length, just remember that I understand more than you know, and next time I can't or won't do something you can do so easily, remember that there's a reason.

(Everyone who knows someone with a chronic illness needs to go to butyoudontlooksick.com and read this. She is more eloquent on the subject than I could ever be. I encourage all of you to buy a spoon and wear it for those you love who are counting them.

I found this news story on Penny's blog today. I know it's an older news story, but take a look at it. It's terrifying.

As some one who lives with Type 1 diabetes daily, this kind of thing terrifies me for all of the young children out there who are diagnosed every day at very young ages. It horrifies me to think of parents letting a child die this way, when it could be prevented.

It also reminds me that every day parents have to to deal with the effects of this disease on behalf of their children. I have a hard time comprehending how devastating it must be to have to do all of the necessary things to control diabetes for, and for that matter TO a small child every day.

It makes me want to shout to the world what wonderful parents people like Penny and her husband, and many others like them are.

Much love and prayers to you, Penny, and to Riley, and hope for a cure for all of our sakes.

So, about a month and a half ago I started on an insulin pump, and it's mostly been just peachy so far. Once I got everything adjusted right, I've had numbers right where they're supposed to be and almost no weight gain, and the thing is about as easy to use as your average cell phone. (Which is good for me, but YMMV, as they say)

Unfortunately, today I was changing my reservoir when I heard a little *pop* as I screwed it in, and looked down to see a bright crack ringing the top of the reservoir well. 'Are you f-ing kidding me?' I thought, amazedly examining the little bugger from every angle and trying to determine if it was still priming. Thinking of what my insurance rep would say if I told them $6K they shelled out had bit the dust in a little over a month, I called the company and they zipped a new replacement in the mail, to arrive tomorrow via FedEx.

All night I've been jumping like a kangaroo every time the thing alarms and reaching for the test kit. Oy. It amazes me how much technology has come to rule my life, but then again, it beats the hell out of the Ladder Diet.

I hate the pharmacy. Every time I go, unless I deal with the sweet little old Jamaican woman behind the counter, I have to go through almost two hours or the most amazing bullshit ever produced by a pharmacy technician.

Today this asshole had me in tears, because I had been standing at the desk for almost an hour trying to get the same insulin refill I always get and he was convinced that my doctor was trying to get them sued for insurance fraud because there was no number in the daily dosage instructions.

For f*ck's sake. I realize that these guys have to do some training for the position of pharmacy techician, but whose opinion am I going to value more about the proper notation of my dosage, someone who graduated summa cum laude from medical school and was and NIH fellow in endocrinology or someone who works at CVS for minimum wage and graduated from an online correspondence course? (If you think I jest, then just search Google for pharmacy tech training) My cat could pass that test.

The man WOULD NOT give me my insulin, for God's sake. Finally I had to call the pharmacist over, who is a friend of mine due to how often I'm in the store. It was really gratifying to hear him ask this idiot, "Were you born yesterday? It's INSULIN. It's variable. Get out of the way."

GOd bless that man. I'm going to find out the dispensing guidelines for insulin and take them back over there and shove them up that guy's nose, I swear.

Apparently, yet again, the government is making grand assumptions that we, as the diabetic population at large, are idiots.

There's just no two ways about it.

I. HATE. HOSPITALS.

Not in the normal, I-hope-I-never-have-to-stay-in-one way, but with an intense creeping horror and a strong OCD sort of go-out-of-my-way-to-avoid-them sort of violent aversion. As you might expect, every time I've been to one has been a pretty intensely unpleasant experience. Let's see... moving backwards:

• The last two times, watching my friend suffer through hours of a complex confusional migraine because either the doctors and nurses believed her and had no idea what to do or they acted like she was a total wack-job.
• I suppose the recent experience of going to see my cousin's baby wasn't technically the hospital's fault, but mental trauma ensued nonetheless. Don't ask. It's a family thing.
• Hmmm... the summer that I passed out at the theatre and the ER doctor assumed that it was my fault that Chick-Fil-A Guy gave me a regular lemonade instead of diet (this is one of the few cases where I can never tell the difference, and I used to work there. It's scary) and proceeded to lecture me on diabetic control because I keeled over with a BG over 700. (Ummm... hello, this should have been a clear indicator that I should have been on insulin. No amount of oral meds can control for that kind of reaction. It's a five minute process to test for Type I antibodies here guys.)
• I don't even have time to recount the nightmare that was my diabetes diagnosis trip. Asshole ER doctors, faulty stitches, and incompetent endocrinologists. &^#%@^*%$@(!
• Hold my friend's good hand as the doctor finished up a total of 219 stitches (the last ones were on her face) as a result of being pushed off of a landing onto a tile floor by way of a glass table during one of her husband's temper tantrums.
• Watching a friend get eaten alive by cancer all through middle school. (This is where the creeping horror comes from. I'll be honest. It was like a Steven King movie, I swear. *shudders*)

So here I sit in the ER again, waiting for doctors, waiting for nurses, waiting for relief, waiting for emancipation. Because no matter how much it makes me jump out of my skin, no one should have to sit in the hospital alone, and I love my friend. Think happy thoughts for her, okay?

In my entire life, I have only once had to pull off the road when listening to the radio because something I hear so upsets me or pisses me off that it affects my driving. (That would be on 9-11 when the first tower fell.)

Until yesterday. On yesterday's Kojo Nnamdi Show, one of the wonderful NPR shows from DC's own WAMU, it was once again time for the DC Politics Hour with Kojo and Jonetta, as in Jonetta Rose Barras. At about forty-two minutes into the broadcast, Barras derails into a pretty spectacularly bad diatribe about the bill that D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson introduced this week, which would require restaurants with 10 or more locations to provide their customers with nutritional information on the food they serve. (Discussion begins at about 39:20)

After she blithely asked the host if she could be "crude" for a moment, this is the "discussion" that followed:

(Barras:)"I mean these people that, if you have to be concerned that much about what you're eating, don't go out. It's like smoking-- if you're worried about getting smoke in your hair and on your clothes and everything, don't go! Stay home! Prepare your meal at home! Don't make everybody suffer because you need somebody to carry you around... a little..."

(Nnamdi:)(laughing) "I said you couldn't be crude..."

(Mendelson:) "How are you suffering by having this information, and if you don't want it, don't pay attention to it. But some people want it-- and it's a guessing game right now...--"

(Barras:) "But I think it's not the point of the government. I think the government shouldn't be in my plate, or even in my restaurant, expecially since you don't want to be with the school lunch menu..."

(Nnamdi:) "I'm assuming that when you go to the supermarket you do pick up the box to see how many calories, how many grams of fat, et cetera on the products you buy..."

(Barras:) "I certainly know generally what that is..."

(Nnamdi:) "Why should this be any diefferent?"

(Barras:) "Because now you're in a restaurant where food is being prepared for you, and if you are worried about fats, trans fats, saturated fats, all of the fats ... cook it at home."

(Nnamdi:) "See, that's why Jonetta's not in the restaurant business."

I have no problems with Barras expressing her political views. I have no problems with her providing the strident opposition she's known for on the issues we're all vested in in the DC area.

What I do have a problem with is that she derailed into a rant that in essence says that people like me are a gross imposition on the public at large. I have news for you Ms. Barras: PEOPLE LIKE ME ARE THE PUBLIC AT LARGE.

Since she's worried that people like diabetics and people who have to watch their fat grams are going to ruin her time out at whatever restaurant she happens to be frequenting, I'd like to share a few statistics with her:

The American Diabetes Association cites that 9.6% of the American population over the age of 20 has diabetes. This instance is markedly higher in the African American population, averaging 13.3 percent.

In terms of watching fat grams and salt intake, one of the main recommendations for people with heart disease or stroke considerations like elevated cholesterol and blood pressure, we turn to statistics from the American Heart Association: approximately 35 percent of the American population suffers from high cholesterol, which can lead to heart disease. Approximately 33 percent of the American population has high blood pressure, which can lead to heart disease and stroke.

These diseases are only the tip of the iceberg. Many more Americans deal with many other diseases that necessitate the access to this information.

If Ms. Barras is trying to make a point by hyperbole, I'd like to fire back a volley or two in the same manner. Already we're talking about at the very least, one in ten people who need the information she's ranting about in order to manage their disease. These are people who, in her opinion, should refrain from business or pleasure in public at restaurants. People who should not get to spend time with friends and family and support the businesses of the District.

What would happen if even one tenth of the population stayed home as she said? Considering that the National Restaurant Association estimates that the restaurants in DC generated over 2 billion dollars in revenue in 2006, that's at least 200 million dollars lost to the restaurant industry right there in one year. Not to mention that their families will be staying home with them. More losses. 30 percent? 667 million per year. Sounds ridiculous right?

Not as ridiculous as someone who is supposed to be as well-educated and professional as Ms. Barras making asinine statements like the ones above on a publicly funded National Public Radio program.

Ms. Barras should have a llittle more empathy for the amount of work it takes to control these problems. Infinitely more work than she can imagine I would guess. Counting carbs, counting calories, counting fat grams, counting salt intake: it's a full-time job. If that process gets sabotaged, people could die. It's that simple. (This is unfortunately NOT hyperbole.) Why not make it a little easier to manage-- it will relieve some if the pressure on healthcare in the long run and provide business that pays into the DC coffers.

The proposal under fire, by the way, has as a provision that it applies to resraurants with ten or more locations. These types of restaurants generally already provide nutritional information to their clients as a service, so this wouldn't inconvenience anyone unnecessarily.

Shame on you, Jonetta Rose Barras, for opening your mouth without thinking. Or even more shame on you for thinking and then opening your mouth. It may be your opinion, but in my mind it's you who needs to stay home if you can't operate on a higher level than a two-year-old crybaby. Stick to the issues, and leave hyperbolic vitriol out of it.

I'm so tired tonight. Tired.

Every so often, I get really really fed up with all the stuff I have to do, particularly all of the things I have to do to control the D-Monster. All of the testing and counting and reconciliation and most of all, the honesty.

When you have to account for every single morsel that goes in your mouth, the honesty quotient you have with yourself is really really brutal. There's no fudging on little bites of brownie batter-- your numbers pop up later on the meter to say "Liar, liar!!" and beat you about the ego. I used to enjoy tasting lots of little things in between meals ("Liar, liar!") and having the occasional drink before dinner ("Liar, liar!"), but now the guilt that comes with the brutal honesty of constant vigilance is really starting to get old.

The problem comes in that if I ignore that obnoxious little voice ("Liar, li-- oof!" Sounds of a struggle ending in a muffled thump) it comes back with a bullhorn later during my blood tests. It's like having someone constantly looking over your shoulder to pass judgement on every decision you make. It's unnerving and anxiety-inducing, especially for someone who likes being a wallflower in large public gatherings when she's not onstage. It makes me want to crawl in a hole and hide.

And the worst part? I'm so tired of having no one to talk to who understands me on this. None of my good friends have this disease. They don't understand, and I don't mean just in the larger sense-- they just don't get it on a visceral level. Not even my fabulous husband, who lives with me daily, can really understand. They don't understand how mentally tired I am every day just from having to juggle all of this information. They don't understand how physically exhausted my body is from the constant up-and-down pitch of a blood-level element that in normal people is relatively unchangeable. Some days I'm good on six or eight hours of sleep. Other days I can't sleep enough. There have been nights that I've been so tired I was literally weeping, but couldn't sleep because a common cold kept my levels so erratic that I'd wake up every five minutes.

I'm even more tired of trying to explain it to people who don't understand. So many of them think they do, but then they kind of devolve into this skeptical haze when I talk about it. I'm tired of having to introduce my pump to people when they ask me what it is and seeing their crestfallen, embarassed faces when I tell them. The uncomfortable grimace they get while they're trying to figure out if they've asked an inappropriate or embarassing question is really starting to piss me off. I try to be good about talking about it-- I'm open and honest about it if they ask and try to let them know I'm comfortable talking about it. It gets really old though, to the point that I was almost ready to hurl when one of my new students asked today.

I'm just tired. Too tried to sleep. Too tired to care. Too tired to talk anymore.

I can officially say that there is now a pack of Diet Coke Plus in my house, and I would like to put forth the question to the Coca-Cola Company: What in the world possessed you people?

Diet Coke Plus is everything you love about Diet Coke products, plus several essential nutrients you want and your body needs. Each 8-ounce serving of Diet Coke Plus provides 15% of your Daily Value for Niacin and vitamins B6 and B12, and 10% for Zinc and Magnesium.

Yeah, I know, I bought it, didn't I? But I was curious, okay?

First of all, vitamins in diet soda* is no new thing, but come on-- they're not supposed to be healthy. They're supposed to be placeholders for things that are even more unhealthy. I seriously shudder to think of what would happen if my Mom got a case of these in her hands.

My mother is probably the biggest Diet Coke addict I have ever met. Throughout the course of a day, she's been known to drink up to eight (EIGHT!) Diet Cokes, and I've never seen a smoker with a worse Jones than when my mom is soda-deprived. She'll seriously leave the house and drive a couple of miles just to get a soda, then come back and be about her business. Not that I have much room to talk-- my fridge is always packed with diet sodas of some type.

At least it's Diet Coke she's addicted to, right? Could be worse.

P.S. Diet Coke Plus is seriously nasty. Too sweet and almost flat. Yecch. Do not, repeat, do not try this at home.

*Yes, I realize that I, as a Southern girl, am not referring to all sodas in question as "Cokes". It weirded me out too when I realized it, but that would be too confusing in this context I think.

I just spent the better part of a day recovering from one of the more fabulous meals I've ever experienced. It was so worth it.

Last night D and I hung out out over at Chez Frankenberry, where we were treated to yummy artichokes (see... right over there ---> that gorgeous thing that my sorry-ass camera phone couldn't capture worth a damn) as well as great steaks, yummy rice pilaf, super bread (which was my total undoing) and I swear to God, the best strawberry pie I've ever put in my face (for the love, the crust alone was worth raptures... crispy, flaky... *drools*) Not to mention happy drinks to start with... mojitos for me and Mrs. F's happy drink, Malibu and pineapple juice for D.

Now, that being said, I completely and totally overdid it. Somewhere in the course of great conversation, copious dog petting (as I'm sure they're sick of hearing, Frankenberry's dog could give the Marchesa Casati's cheetahs a run for their money in the style category), and general merriment, I went completely off the chart, and unfortunately for my A1c and kidneys, I also had a clogged canula. My poor little pump just couldn't keep up. I woke up puffy and feeling like I had had my tongue dehydrated and my eyeballs squeezed, not to mention that my dreams last night made all the Sci-Fi Channel I watched today seem tame and comforting by comparison.*

I need to pause here for a moment to make the stringent point that in no way was any of that nastiness the fault of Sir Frankenberry and his lovely wife, which I'm sure they're smart enough to know. My numbers were normal when I left and before I went to bed, and there's no way to predict a clogged pump set. Just wanted to make that clear before I moved on, since I know he'll read this at some point.

So after a lot of soul searching and rumination this past week, this morning's water and insulin and lo-carb therapy was just the tipping point, and I'm going back on the diet wagon. Those size 8 Paper Denim and Cloth jeans are calling, and I can't say I'd be unhappy about having to buy a new dress for my concerto concert in September...

Can I just say that I hate packing?

All day today I've been getting ready for my trip home to Alabama this week. Cat-sitter briefed? Check. Bills mailed? Check. Clarinet practiced? Sorta check. Work finished? Almost check. Toilet scrubbed? Check. Food packed? Check. Checkbook balanced? Check. Clothes packed?

Not even sorta check.

I have this passive-aggressive relationship with my clothes right now. They're all in the size I've been most of my life, and it kinda makes me sick. See, all of my life that I can remember I've been a at least a size 12-14. I can remember when I was in middle school, looking in the juniors section of Penney's at jeans. I was lucky to fit into a 13, if I really tried.

Then a couple of years ago, I had an abrupt bout with the Root Canal Diet, and was diagnosed as diabetic. Through a lot of mistakes made by my doctors, I went on for two years with the erroneous diagnosis of Type II diabetes, all the while shedding weight and trying to stay upright as my body cannibalized itself. At my smallest, I was actually too small for my size 6 birthday dress, and had to have my mom pin up my bridesmaid's dress at my sister's wedding.

Then finally came my doctor's bright idea that maybe the pills weren't working, and he started me on insulin. I'm not kidding when I say I literally put on twenty pounds in two weeks. I grew out of a clothes size every couple of days. Finally my weight stabilized at about 175, still fifty pounds below where I ultimately started from, but forty pounds heavier than when I bought my summer bikini, the first one I'd ever been proud to own. I never even got to wear it at the beach.

Now, I admit that the next twenty pounds are my own fault. I was in school, stressed out, and eating to compensate. I own that, I really do, but that doesn't mean that my pictures from China don't make me cringe.

So that puts us back to where we are now. I'm fat again. When I see clothes on the rack, I automatically go for the largest size they have, hoping it will fit. I wear a lot of yoga pants and tee shirts, because frankly I'm too chubby to wear the cute-girl clothes I really want to buy. What's going in my suitcase is basically stretchy, black, and nothing cut above the knee.

I still remember this time last year, when I stepped on the scale and saw the number where I now unhappily sit. It had been a long time since I actually wanted to curl up and die in a corner, but there was that old feeling again. And what sucks about it-- if I could be sick and skinny or healthy and fat? Definitely skinny. At least I didn't hate myself every time I looked in the mirror.

I actually talked to D about this the other night, because let's face it, we're both in the same boat weight-wise. I basically I told him I've had to make the decision over the last couple of weeks between whether I want to enjoy food or look good, and it took me a long time to honestly answer that I'd rather starve myself and be skinny in the long run. This, you have to remember, from someone who loves to eat like a fish likes to swim and whose favorite section in the bookstore is the cookbook aisle. So there it is, folks. Hi, I'm Starving Sassy, and this is day number four of the calorie count. Hopefully by this time next year that bikini will be back in play.

And before anybody tries to "cheer me on" or "cheer me up", stop right there. I don't want to hear it unless you are in or have been in the same boat. Most people have no idea how hard it is to lose the magnitude of weight I'm looking at in the rearview, and what a daunting task it is, especially for someone who has a pretty mean fucking complication to deal with like diabetes. Seriously, shut the fuck up. I can guarantee that even though I may not look like it right now, I probably know as much or more than you do about weight loss and how to achieve it, so keep your suggestions to yourself. If I want advice, I'll ask my nutritionist or personal trainer, because Alli is for idiots, diets don't work in the long run, and low-carb dieters have nothing on me, brother-- I can do that shit upside down and backwards in my sleep. (It's one thing to have to count carbs to lose a few pounds, but it's quite another to have to do it to stay alive.)

Anyway, this is by way of saying that there may be some serious food-bitching going on here in the future, so be aware. You have been warned-- the fat kid's cake has been taken away, and it's not going to be pretty.

So here's the thing:

I've missed you guys.

I've had some pretty heavy things going on in my life this year, things which basically have changed the face of my entire existence in one way or another. And I haven't really felt comfortable talking about that here, in public, for anyone and everyone to read. More importantly, there are very good reasons why I can't and shouldn't.

And frankly, it's killing me.

Because if you're still reading this, then I've probably known you, or had you as a reader, for long enough that you're probably wondering what the hell happened to me.

Because if you're still reading this, you're probably one of the people whose opinions and love I value enough that I'm going to need your help in the next year.

Because frankly, I need an outlet more in-depth than Twitter and less personal than Facebook.

So here's the other thing:

On March 1st, this blog is getting a makeover. I'll be moving it to a new server, shaking up the layout a little, and converting it to a new CMS, though the site address won't change. The ranting and raving and silliness will stay the same, only there will be some things that I don't want to share with everybody, some things that I may need to share and say, but only within certain circles. I'm tired of keeping it all pent up and I've done that for long enough.

If you're still reading this blog, and you're been a loyal reader or friend or even a long-time lurker, email me at (sassy{at}sassyblonde{dot}net) with the title of this post in the subject line or comment on this post and request an access key. I'd love to have you in the circle.

Til then, I'll be cleaning house and doing some renovation, and I'll see you on March 1st.

UPDATE: So, snow and circumstances being what they've been around here, I'm going to have to ask you guys to wait around a little longer, which actually ends up being appropriate for a lot of reasons. I've gotten all your emails and comments, and if you can hang tight for a few more weeks, I'll have the next phase ready on April 1st.