1. what stress?

I used to do these as a matter of course.

Back when I was a more frequent blogger, National Blog Posting Month was a regular thing for me. For four straight Novembers, I successfully completed the challenge, and I added several other months once the organizers took it monthly a few years ago.

And even though my blogging has been anything but regular recently, I was confident about getting through this month with a post a day.

It’s not hard. And it’s especially easy when you get off to a nice, graceful start.

And then, today happened.

I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night. All Thursday nights at Piper’s Pub are special, but Halloween night there was extra fun. Mrs. Crappy and I dressed up as our two favorite Food TV annoyances, Paula Deen and Guy Fieri, and our friend Jenny came up with our favorite costume, a very nice re-creation of her boyfriend Matt, complete with beard.

But the late night wouldn’t have been a big deal if my work schedule for Friday had held up. I was to make three different stops to tape interviews for a video thing I’ll be starting for work at the end of the month; the first stop wasn’t until 10 a.m., so I was going to have a relaxing morning before heading out.

That blew up around 3 a.m., when a nasty little storm blew through Pittsburgh. It was a warm night, so we went to bed with the windows open. So when the line of thunderstorms reached us, it sounded like a hurricane. I rushed to close windows all over the house … and then the combination of adreneline and the now-stuffy air kept me awake for a while.

I woke up earlier than I wanted to, and found an email from work about a couple things that needed to be taken care of immediately — and involved me going to the office. Which would make me late for every single thing I had scheduled for the day.

On top of all this, November 1 was the arbitrary day I picked to stop using tobacco. Let’s just say this didn’t help.

Got lucky on the way to work — not only was I able to re-schedule the most important appointment of the day, but I came across a Duquesne Light truck struggling to deal with a splintered tree that had taken down a power line. There’s the art I needed to go with a quick story about the storm. I got that done, tweaked a couple other things and headed out to the appointment.

The rest of the day was good. I got in two of the three things I had scheduled. I got home in time to finish my column at a reasonable hour. Mrs. Crappy and I made tacos from the leftover pot roast we had for dinner Wednesday night.

And then there was this.

That’s the light fixture that hangs over our kitchen sink. It is, frankly, a pain in the ass. Reaching up there while standing on a chair in front of the sink forces me into an angle that causes instant screeching back pain. The mostly stripped screws are notoriously touchy; they’ll either spin endlessly or release with just a touch, dropping the lens in the sink or on my face. And when it does finally open, I am showered with however many stink bugs have chosen the light as their final resting place.

How does changing this light bulb make me feel? A lot like that.

But November 1 finally decided to give me a break. The light opened easily. The four dead stink bugs slid into the lip of the fixture instead of dropping in my hair. And Mrs. Crappy — who has been hoarding the old fashioned incandescent light bulbs because she hates how the new, energy-efficient bulbs work, agreed to let me use one of the new bulbs as a replacement, so I won’t have to change the damn thing again for at least a couple years.

That’s better. Let’s hope the rest of November goes that way.