The Blog's Worth!

I just did the little thing with "Technorati" where it evaluates the worth of one's blog and mine, according to however they do their calculations, is worth apparently a little over $5,000. I was surprised by this. No, actually, I was SHOCKED! I was figuring I'd be lucky if they came up with 2 cents of value from my ramblings!

I have no distinct purpose behind my entries here. Hence the name, "Down River Drivel" as I think it is quite fitting to call many of my ramblings "Drivel." That's what it is, so why lie about it?

Tonight, I'm rambling probably more than usual. Why? I have no clue!

I spent yesterday - between babysitting Maya and Kurtis - trying to get some things in order so I could do some baking for the holiday, which is now, what - four days away. I am no where near ready - nothing unusual about that, not for me anyway. Although I am a little more prepared this year than I was a year ago at this time. Last year, I didn't begin doing any cookie baking until Dec. 23rd and that ended almost as quickly as it began when my mixer burned up on me! No, it didn't catch fire, flame out all over the place and scorch me, the counter or anything else. It just started giving out this grinding sound and I could smell the motor starting to smolder! Not a pleasant smell and one I have become quite accustomed to since that marked the fifth - yes, fifth - hand mixer I had managed to destroy in a short two year period!

To say I was unhappy about this would be an understatement. I had bread dough partially mixed, was in the midst of creaming butter and sugar for some cookie recipe when I detected the obnoxious aroma and knew immediately, my plans for mashed potatoes for our Christmas Day Dinner would mean a stiff arm from having had to mash them myself using one of those old-fashioned potato masher things. Not exactly my favorite utensil in my kitchen catch-it-all junk drawer!

But anyway - bake to the present and my baking thus far which consists of about 4 12 dozen peanut butter cookies (which my older grandson, Alex, professes are his favorite cookies) and today, I managed to create roughly 12 dozen cookies of the "chocolate chip" variety. Except these are different in that I used the "swirled" chocolate chips. I have almost 5 dozen raspberry-chocolate-swirl chip cookies and another 7 plus dozen mint-chocolate-swirl-chip cookies. I have a package too fo caramel-chocolate-swirl-chips waiting patiently in the wings to go into yet another batch of these, shall I dare say "delicacies" and maybe will manage to get them whipped up in the morning. That is of course, provided I go back to bed and manage to garner a couple more hours of sleep before daughter Mandy has to get up and get her fanny off to report into work at 7 a.m. (All that means is that sleeping late in the morning is not going to be an option I can enjoy today as I will have to be up early now to make sure Kurtis and Maya get fed, have clean dry drawers on their little fannies and that Maya doesn't immediately begin to partake of her favorite pasttime - wrecking the living room and adding a few extra-special touches to the living room as well as to my bedroom if I forget to gate that area off so she can get access to all the many types of wonderful possessions, stacks of fabric, patterns, books, yarns, a sewing machine, other pieces of furniture to store my clothes in but which usually end up all in a pile here, another there for that truly "lived-in" appearance we all strive for in our housekeeping methodology!

I don't know why but tonight, by 9 p.m., I was totally exhausted, could not hold my eyes open any longer and went to bed! I was sound asleep within at most, probably 10-15 minutes and doing fine with my snoring technique - no one came out and poked me to roll over so it must have been a bit on the quiet side - but about 1 a.m., those little stinker things I have been complaining about -incessently too, I know - for the past 4 months apparently woke up and noticing I was asleep, they couldn't let me continue in such a peaceful mode. So the damned shingles began to pinch - and pinch and pinch some more until I felt I had no alternative but to get up and go take yet another Lortab in the hopes it would go to work quickly, making me very sleepy - like waving the proverbial watch on a chain before my eyes and telling me "you are getting sleepy, you are getting sleepy. Sleep, sleep, yes restful sleep."

Well I am happy to report that now, yes I am getting sleepy so something is working in that respect. But then too, that is now, as I sit here trying to type. Odds are, the short walk from my computer desk to my bedroom - about 12-15 foot at most - will be just enough to bring me to life again and I'll still be awake, tossing and turning at 6 a.m. when Mandy gets up to get ready to head off to work today!

None of these ramblings this morning has touched on another aspect of my being awakened so rudely by these freaking shingles and that is that this morning when I initially woke up, I was also for some reason or other -none I can attribute to anything in particular, but I was also depressed.

Probably was depressed simply because I had been awakened at this time of day and loosing so much valuable time to expound on perfectly delightful topics to enlighten all my readers with my astute interpretations of how wonderful my prose is or can be at times, or relating to others the joys of my beautiful grandchildren, or perhaps it was the thrill of having baked some more cookies.

I just don't know but for some reason, checking my e-mail suddenly had me in a weepy mode - one I don't really like when it comes upon me suddenly, no warning and nothing drastic happening either in my life to cause that.

But for now - it has been wonderful to sit here and type this, tell you all about my current circumstances too and to see, to experience, to feel, the extreme need to go back to sleep!

Hope you don't have a problem like this that keeps you from that wonderful aspect of wanting, needing sleep, believing it is just around the corner waiting to take you away to dreamland and then suddenly has you wide awake, wishing you could count has high as my 3-year-old granddaughter is now doing throughout each day - great entertainment that is'

So - away I go - in search of some more sleep and here's hoping each of you reading this says a quick prayer in my behalf that it will all come to pass!

What do you do to get yourself back to dreamland anyway? Share your information so I can try it tomorrow night too because odds are, this syndrome of mine will be back, full strength then too!

Nite'all!