Life's been good to me so far

I'm really, really excited about Thanksgiving :D Everything is coming up Millhouse, in that regard. My Dad got the time off to come up from Key West, which I am so happy about. Nancy managed to get out of Massachusetts on time (she was waiting on very overdue babies) and is now in Florida in time to be here, which I am so happy about. I spent an hour on the phone and computer with Robby helping him find the right combination of rides and busses and trains to get here from Lake City, which I am so happy about. Gloria and Shaun will also be here :D Laura will be here with her kids for at least part of the evening :) Grant's got this whole week off of work, and the weather is taking a dip down into the 70s Thursday. Just... ANTICIPATION! My kids are all counting down and the recipes are piling up. We've got all these white Christmas lights and candles ready for the deck.

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BUT. Today was sort of a drag. I stayed up very, very late (2-3) listening to Robby because he's having a hard time and just needs to vent. Which is ok, I love him, but made getting up to take Isaac to school and write a theater paper more challenging. Today was also my group's theater presentation, for that class - Grant came along with me to carry big props and watch our play (skit, really...) I was a drunken, pregnant Texan, which was fun and funny for a little while. He enjoyed laughing and taking pictures while someone did my makeup with a pillow stuffed in my shirt, and we all got As and decent comments afterward... then Grant and I went to eat thai for lunch, which was also nice.

After that, though, I sat around for the entire afternoon AND INTO THE EVENING, at my doctors office. Never mind that I am frantic to be cleaning and cooking at home while also simultaneously struggling to keep my eyes open.

Eventually I saw the doctor - I was back at my MD to see my latest set of labs and get my referral, today, and she tells me this:

SED rate: 70, up from 60
Rheumatoid Factor: 11, up from 7 (but still neg by this office's scale - old rheumy said over 10 was positive)
C reactive protein: positive, present, don't know/remember details

So for all of that she's sending me on to a new rheumatologist (old one closed, which is why I'm there with her), but - I'm apparently SEVERELY deficient in B-12 and folate. Which is not something I'd even considered or previously heard anything about. She actually said my numbers are the worst she's ever seen, and I've been going to this same MD since I was 5 years old so I would assume she's seen many. She said she doesn't know how I'm getting out of bed with levels this low, which is incredibly validating, because IT'S FUCKING HARD.

So I got a B-12 shot before I left the office (which made me pretty nauseus, and gave me an immediate headache), and have to get them weekly, and was prescribed folic acid to take every day, but clearly we need to find out why those numbers are so low.

I of course came home to try to e-search all of this myself, and what the e-searching keeps coming back around to is...Celiac disease O_o I don't know. But that would certainly explain why quitting gluten* made such a wildly crazy difference, and cheating has caused me to take such a turn for the worse :/ It's clearly just another avenue to pursue and talk about with doctors, but, damn - the symptom list, with the destruction of tooth enamel**, joint pain, heartburn, and the way surgeries can trigger it (I did have intestinal surgery...), just, bleh.

That's a whole other ball of complications and long term plans to consider. I'm going to talk to my MD about it tomorrow, since Celiac is a totally different specialist and I (clearly) don't know what the hell is happening in my body, but - I'm kind of up in the air about how all the advice out there is like, "IF YOU THINK YOU MIGHT HAVE CELIAC, DO NOT STOP EATING GLUTEN SINCE THAT WILL SKEW YOUR TEST RESULTS - oh but if you do have celiac, by all means stop eating even trace amounts right this second since it's causing terrible damage to your body and could even kill you if left untreated." Uh - ? I get it, but, I'm having a hard time anyway. Thinking "out loud."

There's also something called Pernicious Anemia that is terrifying in a whole other way, that is a contender as it is an autoimmune disorder that destroys your ability to absorb B-12 and folate, too. I'm definitely not doing any more independent research until after I've been to a specialist or two because it will just drive me crazy.

Here's hoping I have some renewed energy from the shots, soon, anyway.




*which I did because of rumors and hypothetical alternative theories about gluten agitating/causing RA, which my father has, and I was afraid I was getting due to my new joint pain and fatigue

**see a couple of entries down, when I explained that I need FIFTEEN FILLINGS due to demineralization?!

It's an ongoing source of angst that I am not "devoted" enough to any of my kids' various extracurricular activities, and thus get all kinds of complaints and tension. For instance, just today Aaron's solo rehearsal, which was scheduled from 3-4pm, ran AN HOUR over. I don't get an explanation or an apology - I get a side eye for questioning why I've been chilling in the parking lot for so long, since none of the other parents were questioning why all the solos were running late today (apparently they all had to be judged and rated, but it was completely impromptu - like how they schedule things THE NIGHT BEFORE via 11 pm email, and I'm supposed to just "make that work" the following afternoon regularly...but worse!). The full time "dance moms" who hang out in the lobby for hours on end do a kind of, "Oh, how typical, hahaha" chuckle and that's the end of it.

Similarly, Friday evening he had to go to his solo rehearsal with no knee pads, because he lost the ones I bought him. I explained that to his choreographer, along with reassuring her that he should have them by next time since I'm making him tear the house apart until he finds them. She seriously acted like I am negligent and she was speechless, or something. Like I should just get him new knee pads every day - not like, you know, he needs to keep track of his own things and learn responsibility (this is not a safety issue like it would be in derby, they are soft comfort knee pads for sliding on, and he's already wearing sweat pants...some of the dancers choose not to use knee pads ever, but she had said he should get them).

I understand and appreciate that every single one of these programs is only possible because one or more adults is really putting in some serious hours - I even make a point of telling them how much I appreciate it - but it's not possible for me to do that with all of them...or any, really. I can get people where they need to be, and pony up whatever money and supplies they need (neither of which are insignificant obligations...), but that is really about it. I read the emails and texts that flood in, too - but I don't want to be a part of any phone chains that are being set up, and I cannot volunteer. Whatever I can possibly do drops offs and pick ups for, without hanging around DURING things as they go on, I do. We're talking about:

Annie's roller derby team
Her orchestra ensemble
Her cello mentor and fellow mentee
Her Girl Scout troop
Aaron's dance studio (which includes tons of teachers, many hours per week, and carpooling)
Isaac's (school) teachers
and cheerleading squad (which was just in the Veteran's Day parade this morning)
and clarinet teacher
Jake's violin teacher
Elise's violin teacher
And her Girl Scout troop

This does not count A&A's social gatherings, which are usually every weekend, or Isaac and Jake's playdates, like they just had Sunday. Obviously it also doesn't include appointments, like how we've been to the dentist/ortho 10 times in the last 3 months.

My phone's calendar is absolutely ridiculous. I feel like I am bending over backwards to make these things possible. I can't stand it when people act like I'm half-assing because I don't sit and preside over the bake sale table, or reply to something quickly enough. It flat out drives me crazy when people try to enforce "mandatory parent meetings" - FOR WHAT? So we can spend an hour and a half repeating ourselves about something that is also on the flyers that get handed out at the very beginning of the meeting? I just won't do it, anymore. Like if it's really mandatory that I sit through hour and a half long meetings more than annually, we just can't do whatever that activity is. I'm committed to things like cooking us real food, and spending quiet unhurried time with them one at a time in the evenings, and I'm not letting those things go in the name of whether or not some jackets should have peoples' names embroidered on them or not.

Meanwhile, plenty of parents are walking around in $150 tracksuits with the dance studio name, the cheerleading squad logo, etc on them. And I am the asshole trying not to laugh at them.

I have to pick Isaac up 15-20 minutes late from cheerleading twice a week. There is no other way he can participate, because of other things I'm running around for. He knows and is ok with this. The school is still filled with adults at that time, with other activities full of people, the office staffed, and aftercare kids playing on the playground. I have explained this to his coach, so it can be expected. Still, this woman (coach) marches him out to me, and gives me a fucking lecture about how she doesn't have time to babysit him - and every time I tell her the same thing. FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T BABYSIT HIM, GO HOME! I say it politely. I re-explain that it will always be this time. I reiterate how a-ok I am with him being "on his own" behind the locked gate with everyone else, and that if it isn't ok he can't be a cheerleader. She makes vague ultimatum-ish statements, then gets really sweet and says she'll talk to some other people about it to work something out... and then it repeats again a few days later.

Stupid. Like how the other parents actually ASKED ME who I was on the phone with, when I stood downstairs talking on the phone instead of sitting in on Jake's and Elise's violin class a couple of weeks ago. I told them, "My Dad - he called because it's my birthday," and rather than, you know, "Oh cool" or "Happy Birthday!" I got shit like, "Oh. We were wondering where you were." and (I AM SERIOUS), "My aunt called last week but I returned the call after we left since my phone was off for class." <--My phone rang in our car on the way there, fyi, mine is always off IN THE CLASS, too. Good fucking grief people are ridiculous. It's not OUR CLASS. I don't miss MY OWN CLASSES for phone calls. Just. )(#*$ODFJIOSD*()#&$)(*

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The "arthritis smoothie" I make myself every single day:

-frozen pineapple chunks
-half a banana
-tablespoon-ish of virgin coconut oil
-couple spoonfuls of flax seed meal
-couple of tablespoons of (really good) "smoothie" style fish oil (Barlean's)
-tsp of probiotic powder
-tbsp+ of coconut water kefir
-B vitamin mix powder
-water necessary to turn it into a drink (not much)

I do this in the magic bullet, so it takes all of 30 seconds for it to be transformed into a fairly tasty, relatively homogeneous something once I get it all in the cup.

In other inflammation related news, I called my rheumatologist today to see if she had the results from my blood draw Friday morning, and got a recording of a voice I've never heard saying, "Unfortunately, Dr ______ ______'s office has closed. Fax ___-____ for your medical records." There was no option to leave a message or be transferred to the answering service, as would normally have been provided on a day they were regular-closed.

Uh. Right. I mean...what? Did she die suddenly and tragically over the weekend? My last appt was last Wednesday and this was not brought up O_o This could complicate my documentation for school, and I cannot imagine how completely unbelievable it'll sound to my professors if my specialist just suddenly closed. I mean, maybe, possibly this can be a mix-up since today is a holiday, and I've just misinterpreted?

Because time is of the essence on several levels, I've already sent the fax for my records, in case it is what is seems. With one of those fax-with-email programs, because who the hell has a fax machine.

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12 Things I'm thankful for, for the first 12 days of November:

11/1. the lovely cooler weather
11/2. talking to Dama on fb today
11/3. texting with Kristin, all the time
11/4. Grant's magical hands
11/5. this job that he has, that has been such a boon in so many ways - #5 being money
11/6. and health insurance that allows me free unlimited therapy
11/7. and dental that means we can all get everything we need done reasonably
11/8. and frequent flier miles/hotel points that make trips possible
11/9. AND their no doubt epic Christmas party coming up again - this time, there will be belly dancers and it's at a greek place. Aaaaand I will NOT be near-carried out in a drunken stupor this year :x
11/9. being back in regular touch with Jean-Paul
11/10. Nexxus split end binding conditioner
11/11. all the way healthier stuff BJ's has started stocking
11/12. how funny a couple of the people in my group (for our theater class) can be

Today is Jake's birthday - my fourth child, my afro boy, my Jakey Bakey Pudding and Pie, is EIGHT years old. Eight!

We took him out shopping for his party (tomorrow), and I took him out for a treat, just the two of us. We gave him his small presents (a new sketchpad, and an over-the-bedroom-door basketball hoop with small ball). We cleaned and did yard work. Grant took him, Isaac, and Elise to go see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, this evening. I stuffed goody bags, while they were gone.

I'm having some pretty major pain issues. And what seems from googling to be a baker's cyst, on the back of my right knee. You know, to go with the ganglioic cyst on my left wrist. It's weird to be so physically out of it and so happy, at the same time. Also weird to feel it's obvious I need to go to the doctor, and also obvious that the doctor can't really do anything. I'm going anyway, but...bleh.

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The friend time, in Boston, was fucking amazing. I loved it so much.

Nancy picked us up at the airport, she took us out to dinner, she loaned us her boyfriend's car (we did make sure he was ok with it, but it totally went down just like that) and subway pass (he had nowhere to go that weekend, and she has a vehicle he can drive). She made us breakfast, gave us a bedroom and bathroom for the time we were there.

More than any of that, though - a lot more - she is just so easy to be with, listens so well, says things I truly care about, i.e., anything she does...she also showed me emails from people she's given my book to, discussing the book. Because she has a stack of them in her house, on top of a shelf of books just like how they are at my house, and she gives them out constantly.



She showed me an email from an 80 year old friend of her mother's who was horrified, said I must be "sick...sick...SICK" and that she couldn't even get through it - and then the follow-up, apologizing, saying she read it and was so glad she did, and that I was saying things all women think and feel and are afraid to share, and all kinds of really dumbfounding things I didn't even know how to reply to.

Another person had just finished the first 3 stories, and said they were "completely bizarre, but in a very good way" which is, I hope, the truth. It's so insanely emotional to me, to hear peoples' opinions. I brought my own stack with me and gave out 7 while I was in town, and it's this urgent combination of excitement and anxiety as I imagine them being read (or forgotten all about) and loved, hated, cast off as boring...whatever.

Nancy and I talk about everything. Sex, sickness, therapy, exercise, recipes. She's 65 and she is not very internet savvy, but she wants to know who the Dresden Dolls and Amanda Palmer are, when she knows I'm interested, and she loves the videos I show her. She wants to know where to get the glitter cream eye shadow I'm wearing. She walks so fast I can't keep up. She's doing important work every day, in both the lives of individuals and for people in general. She is such an inspiration overall, still learning and researching and GOING and DOING, every day, much more than most people half her age. She has amazing stuff all over her house that is from Etsy or friends of hers, and there were house guests leaving the day before us, and other guests coming in the day after we left. She sent me home with bags of jewelry she doesn't want anymore, for Ananda and Elise, that both of them were SO EXCITED to get, because they're FROM NANCY :D

Perhaps best of all, she's coming to our house for Thanksgiving ♥ I am SO EXCITED, too, about that :D So is Gloria, since Gloria's here with us for Thanksgiving every year and is a total fangirl for Nancy, as a doula and aspiring midwife. It's funny; I tend to leave the room when Nancy gets a birth call because I don't want to end up triggered all to hell and back. We don't talk about that very much, aside from indirect things like birth laws and interesting clients - we tend to fixate more on her relationship ups and downs, though, and her kids and granddaughter, and paint choices for her new walls, and how she's training her little dog.

Grant and I agree she is an uncanny combination of me, and his mother (who I adore).

This is beautiful, though: http://www.bostonbirthphotographer.com/a-home-water-birth-with-5-siblings-and-a-lot-of-love/

Another book Nancy has in her house:

I did a double take, because Kristin - who is a bona fide chicken nerd - also has it, and has made me read and look at most of it several times over. IS THIS THE SORT OF COMMON DENOMINATOR THAT WILL DEFINE MANY OF MY BEST FRIENDS?! :p

I texted Kristin that pic and she was like, "No, I have a different edition." O_o Like that negates the silliness.


Nancy's deaf cat, who I kept psst-pssting before checking myself. And her dog, who Grant played with almost nonstop the entire visit. His name is Sir Chocolate Sundae With Sprinkles, though the sprinkles were cut off by a groomer soon before this was taken.

Grant made her one of the little pumpkins he does with the kids every year.


And she left these Happy Birthday notes for him, and scattered kisses, in "our" bathroom, for us to come back and find very late, after our concert was over (the 7th was his birthday, and this was a joint birthday trip for the two of us).



There was also our Sunday afternoon visit with Julie/emeraldrabbit. I've "known" Julie online for a lot of years, and met up with her briefly in Boston before Elise was born, but this was so much better. We traipsed there via train, bus and short walk, on a cool and rainy afternoon. It was slightly awkward for about as long as it took to climb their stairs and say hi. After that, I basically felt like I could talk and stuff my face with them forever :) It's awfully easy to imagine living closer and seeing her and Mark all the time, and how Elise would drag their twins around in ways they would hate, and how Annie would join in the adult conversations and Isaac would make Julie laugh. Grant and Mark could become real friends really quick. It almost happened in the time it took them to go get some donuts for all of us. I felt sad that I hadn't started visiting sooner, so that I could have done it twice. *distancesigh*

Monday afternoon I had a shorter visit at a bookstore with idiolecto. We've read each other for lots of years, too, though I'd never met her before. She is ravishingly beautiful and super easy to talk to - if we hadn't been on our way to something else I could have easily kept that conversation going for several more hours. She had an Iowa friend with her and had given her some kind of altarflame debriefing similar to the idiolecto synopsis I lectured Grant with, as we all headed in the direction of our meet up spot. It's so funny, talking livejournal nonsense with other LJ'ers IRL.

She also brought Grant a delicious looking pastry as a birthday gift, which you can see him enjoying here:


There are a lot of reasons for me to go back to Boston again!


We spent the middle night of our 3 nights in a hotel, to try to have some "Grant and I" time. With the last of his work travel points, we were able to spend only $50 to stay in the W, where this is the lobby:

That pink is illuminating moving water, and the curtains are chain mail. It's just ridiculous, I mean -


This is part of the room service menu.


And this is the floor to ceiling, repeating wallpaper in the halls? I just do not even know.

So anyway, because he does travel so much, Grant is considered a "Gold Member," one perk of which is that he gets any available room upgrades they can give him. Which, this particular night, was a freakin' "WOW Suite" that normally rents for over $1,000 per night. It was insane, and we had to sign a liability waiver before we were allowed into it. This is the living room, curtains closed:


And open:





Before we even had time to look at everything properly, someone was knocking on the door to deliver these :) Sometimes really good things come from talking to strangers!















That is a stainless steel kaleidescope, next to a glass prism puzzle O_o The room was filled with little things like that, such as a (not pictured) wooden block puzzle, and a stack of art magazines...



We went out for thai food, and he had to sleep off a persistent headache for a bit. A lot of my accumulated tensions from the frenetic week before caught up with me, along with some (non kid related) drama I'd had with Gloria (who was with our kids - and we worked it out)... and I had to cry my eyes out to let it all go, which thankfully he totally understands and can even guide me to before I get it.

This tumblr post from a pretty cool guy I like a lot was very timely - the quote is, "Most people think happiness is about gaining something, but it’s not. It’s all about getting rid of the darkness you accumulate." Basically, this amazing hotel suite was real neat but I still felt awful in it until I cried, and he still felt awful in it until he napped - then we were both happy, and then we would have been happy no matter where we were.

Not that it wasn't still badass. That bed was really something.

So we watched more episodes of Louie (the show we're currently working our way through), and got it on, and generally didn't sleep much but were better off for it.

It was kinda showing the next morning over breakfast.


Good stuff all around. Like this, that we got via facebook :D



I was so happy that his birthday was acknowledged over and over in so many cool ways. Otherwise I don't think I could have dealt with not being in a position to bake him a cake :)

This has been a great homey sort of family weekend :)

I woke up this morning with Grant, Jake, and Elise, and we had a drawn out cuddle session that included falling back asleep, and waking up again.

Isaac wanted to show me every unlocked character and each of their various rides, on Mariokart, as well as all the (really awesome) suits he made for his (hilarious, adorable) "minions." Basically, he calls the tiny little single peg legos Minions and then designs all kinds of giant robot suits and big disguises for them. Also - he's chosen to make his Mariokart Mii a baby, that races around the track in a rocket-powered stroller called The Booster Seat. I don't know, he cracks me up.

It's also so sweet, that he can keep reading on his own after I'm done reading to him, at night :) Even though he's been chapter book proficient for several months, it was such a long road getting to this point, and I still think about it often.

Also - geeeez as I go through it with the younger kids, am I remembering all the awesome stuff they TOTALLY left out of the Harry Potter movies! Peeves, Winky, Sir Cadogan, whole characters...



G and I had to have a big meeting with Annie, about all kinds of little things (not doing her chores completely or without being told, falling behind in an online class again, staying up too late at night, giving us a big fat attitude on occasion, etc) and put new guidelines in. It was tense and there were tears, but at the end of it all I feel good about it and think she actually does too, which is really saying something considering we're talking about a lot of limits on her freedom/free time, for awhile.

For the next couple of weeks, it's going to be just her and me during the days while Grant's at work, Aaron is at dance intensives, and Isaac, Jake and Elise are at music camp. I'm glad, and think it will be good for us. We can swim at the Y, see free movies, I can help her if she needs it with schoolwork she's doing (they're all doing way less schoolwork than normal, because it's summer, but she's still got an online science class, has a lot of math to get done by the new school year, and is writing book reports for me). I feel like I've barely seen her this summer, even though that's a bit of an exaggeration - in the last month she (and Elise) spent 3 weeks at Girl Scout camp during the days, Grant took her to the big derby tournament for 3 days and 2 nights up the road, and she spent 3 days and 2 nights up at Izzy's house when they went to SuperCon. Between all that and the 4th of July party we threw here with a bunch of her friends, and the Neil Gaiman thing, AND her 13th birthday...I think she's been in a somewhat understandable "cool extra shit all the time" entitled mode, rather than, you know, "do your chores, submit your assigments, etc" mode.

She baked a dutch chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, this evening, awhile after our meeting. It's the first time she's ever done a cake and frosting all on her own without my help. I daresay she even felt proud of it, as she started serving it up to a line of siblings.

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Last night, Grant and I went to see World War Z. It was SO TENSE. The trailers do not really convey the vibe of the movie, during which there were quite a few times I was thinking, "Ok. They did this TOO well." It was a packed theater and at one point the woman to my right jumped and I glanced at her and we both started laughing, and she whispered, "THIS IS RIDICULOUS!" It felt as though there were half hour blocks during which I did not breathe.

I wish everyone had already seen it so I would have more people to talk about it with. I have a little bit of biological warfare plague pandemic flu fear ever since reading The Stand, oh...a DOZEN TIMES, as a kid, that this tapped in to. Also - you really don't realize how OK normal slow zombies are, until you've seen really fast zombies.

I spent awhile reading reviews when I got home, partially because I wonder sometimes WHY we are so obsessed with zombies, as a culture. Why are they a thing? I know lots of people who religiously watch The Walking Dead, and a couple of years ago I read the bestseller The Forest of Hands and Teeth, and there are even Zombie Walks hosted in almost every major city, these days, that are really well attended (by people like my friend Kristin). But zombies aren't interesting creatures we can fall in love with, like so many other supernatural creatures. It's not like a tormented Werewolf who is normal for most of the month, but has this terrible secret. Zombies don't have anything we might want for ourselves - vampires for instance are immortal, they're more beautiful than humans, they can sometimes read minds, fly or turn to freakin' mist. All of that makes for interesting storylines and dynamic characters. Zombies are empty shells o' nothin, targets to kill by the hundred in games like Resident Evil. How is that holding our attention so well? They're not even ideal villains - there's no cool back story like with The Joker, or fascinating yet revolting charm a la Hannibal Lector, in a zombie. How is it that really intelligent people I know, and Cracked, express genuine nervousness that a zombie apocalypse COULD SCIENTIFICALLY HAPPEN?

This author tries to address the answer to this question, in his World War Z review:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2013/07/01/130701crci_cinema_denby
"Are they what we fear we might become if we let ourselves go—soulless vessels of pure appetite, both ravaged and ravaging? Do they represent our apprehension of what hostility lies behind all those blank faces in the office, at the mall, across the dinner table? ...I realized why I felt uneasy in Times Square. The zombies aren’t like us; they are us, just degraded a little. And what the zombie media splurge may unconsciously express is not just a fear that people might become hostile but a desire to be free of the crowd—to 'decrease the surplus population.'"

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I've been really tired, with a lot of brain fog, for several days running. I wrote last week about the struggle to even stay awake. It hasn't really gotten any easier. I mean I force myself, I did a massive load of dishes and cooked a good dinner and took Jake for a bike ride, today, but it shouldn't be this hard. I have so enjoyed these past 5ish months without crazy ass exhaustion (after the 6 months prior, where it hung around all the time), and have been figuring this bout of tiredness is transient, or diet, or who knows what, but...this morning, my hips and feet felt so horrible. Tonight, my hands hurt in little weird ways, and I have a red spot growing on one sore knuckle. I don't want to set up a self-fulfilling prophecy here, but it is so difficult to NOT imagine that I'm getting ready to have another soul-sucking flare... Which reminds me, I'm late to go get a new SED rate taken. *sigh*

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I love sex. I love when Grant and I work our way past another hard spot, and things get awesome again. I love when it's really really obvious that we can do things for, to and with each other that are because of all this time and trust between us. Feel free to stop reading here if you have already heard too much.

If you are still reading, and if the idea of "fisting" sounds terrifying and violent, or just foreign and strange - or perhaps physically impossible - abandon those notions and read this (SAFE FOR WORK) guide by someone I e-know, who knows what's up.

Because there are all these accordioned sort of places inside of a vagina that aren't normally all stimulated at once. But this touches every single one of them. And it takes a long time but at the end of it, you might find that your neighbors are wondering what the hell is so awesome.

Show them the link, too! ;)