can a roasted lambshank be the bone of contention?

The week was too hectic to do this on the official eve, but tonight MyFavoriteKid and I went to my mom and dads for a belated Passover dinner.......


.......where the discussion came up that my knitting at the table at the end of the meal could viewed as my being distracted (or could serve as a distraction to others). My knitting was being compared to the likes of my son playing a handheld game system (which I had earlier refused to allow him to play).

I outright argued that I know this is bullshit. People have been sitting around and knitting and engaging in conversation for centuries. But who am I to explain that to a non-knitter. What I can tell you is that I have my very own handheld game system, so I do have the ability to compare, and no it is NOT the same thing AT ALL. I can knit and listen and talk and not even be looking at my hands all the time. I can make eye contact. Try doing that while you are blowing things up or chasing things around in fantasyland.

But I get it that not everyone understands us knitters and how our we are capable of multi-tasking, and I did (not so politely probably) put my knitting away, and I'll be damned if I ever pull it out again during a visit.

In truth, though? Bottom line? I have only one thing to say to all of this:

If I can't knit while I am with you?
I'm probably not going to have the time (or desire) to knit more things for you.

Just sayin'.

if it were me, i'd do the exact same thing

For those who already surf the knitting blogs, I am sure this is old news....but for the rest of you, I wanted to share.



I love it :-)

I wonder what she was knitting. A blanket? A prayer shawl? Maybe an escape ladder?

you guys are so great....

...and while I ponder your comments (thank you so much---you have given me food for thought!)....I spin.

some VERY yummy fiber from A Verb For Keeping Warm
4oz of "Ashland Bay" (70% merino, 30% tussah silk), colorway "Concord"

input. go for it.

Alright. I am soliciting your advice.

I know I am not the only person here feeling like there aren't enough hours in the day, and that life on this modern planet feels more sped up, and single parenting is rough, and blah blah blah.

But I have done everything I know to do to make my life feel less hectic, and it feels like none of it works.

I have stopped overbooking myself.
I leave time in my schedule for myself.
I (on most occasions) leave early for where I need to be so I don't feel rushed in getting there.
I leave ample extra pockets of time in my schedule for those little bombs that we all know are just bound to be dropped.

It still never works out! The little bombs that get dropped are bigger time suckers that the extra pockets I had built in, and then I am still....well....f#%$ed. Daily. And I'm sick of it.

Is there something I am forgetting to do, people? Is there a trick? If there is, do you know what it is? Was I supposed to make a sacrificial offering to the time gods? And I am supposed to laugh off the things that crop up and refuse to deal with them? HOW does this work???!!!!!!!!

If you know? I want to know.

whoopsie

Ok, so I missed posting yesterday. Oh, well. At least I'm not all "offical-like" like last year, doing 365 and all....

Yesterday was good. TheMostImportantGuy took me out of the house for a bit so that relationship-wheel could be reinventing. Yay! (I love him so much). Talking and clarifying and taking some actions to correct stuff that wasn't working, and we are back on the path. *sigh of relief* Then we went out for dinner and drinks and came home and had some snuggle-time, and I actually did think about the computer and blogging (I even outright mentioned it out loud), but the other stuff won out ;-)

Today has been a bit hectic, and tomorrow might be a bit busy, too.....It's James' birthday tomorrow (the guy I visit in the convalescent hospital...you remember him?). It's our regular day to visit, and it is landing on his birthday! I'm bringing him a special lunch and hope to have time in the morning to pick up a couple extra fun things to brighten his room.

That's what's up here. I feel a bit shallow with this post. I have some other stuff to delve into, but as par for the course around here, I need the time to actually sit my ass down and type it. And I can't seem to find that big of a block of time these days. Must fix.

snaps on saturday

Flowers on my table.....


Went to MyFavoriteKid's final basketball game of the season today. The team made it to the playoffs, but they lost today...so no championships, this was it.

After that, MyFK went off with his dad for the weekend and TheMostImportantGuy helped me clean out the garage to get ready for the neighborhood garage sale. I'm etting rid of lots, but I hope to go through it again before the sale and get rid of a bit more.

Earlier in the morning, before all of this, I wound up the yarn I dyed....


I can't seem to capture the true color on my camera. It's more raspberry. It's lovely, and I'm going to make a neckwarmer with it, but I didn't have time to cast-on for it today. Maybe tomorrow.

Oh. Yesterday, when I was being all crafty, I started another little fiber project. Totally forgot to mention it.

Needle felting! I finished it tonight while TheMIG and I were sitting around having a deep conversation and basically reinventing the relationship wheel. It was fairly upsetting. Stabbing soft fuzzy things somehow helped calm me.

And I got a gnome out of it. And he's cute.


Off to shower and hose off all the garage dust and clear my head. G'night.

avoidance crafting

I got news earlier this week that a friend of mine passed away. I am trying to process it all right now. I need to do a bit more work within myself first before I can get it down my arms and out my fingers. I'm not quite ready to type about it just yet. The whole thing has just got me....well, it's got me a lot of things.

One of the things it has me feeling is the craft impulse.

She was crafty. Very. The artistic kind of crafty. I think what is happening with me is that I am keeping myself crafty-busy (in a mindful sort of way) in her honor. Today I knit a bit more on the comfort shawl I posted about yesterday, and then today I went a bit bananas on that fiber I showed, that I was spinning up on the spindle.

I finished spinning the singles....

I plied them together & wound it into a skein....




....and right now I'm dyeing it.

using this method, and Wilton's (a food paste normally used to tint cake icing). Burgundy.

It been interesting working on this project while in this emotional state. This is not my first handspun yarn (it's my second), but it might prove to be the first one that ever gets knitted up into something. This is the first spinning I've done all alone, in solitude, all by my wee little self (the first skein was done in a class). It is also the first time I have ever dyed anything, too. I'm not sure what possessed me to take my very first usable handspun and throw it into a dyepot without having a fricking idea what I was doing, but whatever. I have a hunch it's going to look just lovely, though. I can't wait to see what it looks like when it's dry.

It's been a good creative process the past couple of days, and I like to think she'd approve.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

my comments to your comments are back in the comments ;-)

boy, can i slip into old patterns like that! (*snap!)

Talk about full of crap! Daily posting. Bah! Posting Schmosting.

I spent all day doing stuff like this:

(my version of a prayer/meditation shawl...more on that soon)

And this:

(the first spindle spinning that I feel excited enough about to actually have a knitting project in mind for...more on that soon)

Ooooo, and I also had someone come over and give me a lesson on the spinning wheel that has been sitting here collecting dust because I couldn't figure out how to use it....and, ummm....more on THAT soon, too!! Because the day got away from me, then MyFavoriteKid came home from school and it was all about....well, MyFavoriteKid (which is how it has been going since the first of the year), and the then what do you know? It's time to go teach dance class.

Then I get home, it's just before midnight, and I'm too tired to type!

Ahhhh, just like the good 'ol days.

i've never understood moderation

Moderation is just not a word that has ever made to this here extremist. Typically I am either doing something obsessively, or not at all. Kinda drives me nuts, but at 42 I'm kinda thinking this might be a "can't teach an ol' dog new tricks" sort of thing, and I'm just going to have to apply a different strategy when it comes to things like blog posting.

Last year I did daily entries for an entire year.
The year ended, and now I can't seem to get in more than one or two posts a month.

Sad.

Back in the days before I had a blog, I would pull this routine with my pen and paper journal. I'd feel a twinge of guilt that I hadn't written in awhile, then I'd remember it was PAPER, and it had no FEELINGS, and that it was MY paper, and I'd get over it real quick-like and sit my ass down and write something.

But with the blog? I dunno. Seems like a whole different ballgame. I know it's a blank entry screen, I know it's MY blank entry screen....but I'm not entirely convinced that my blog has no feelings. It talks back. There are comments. There are people reading. And saying things. With feelings. The blog is not a book that I write in, and as obvious as that may seem, I forget that. After all these years.

Not sure if this rambling makes any sense, but....

I miss my blog. Every single day something happens that I want to document, but I don't, and then I get behind, and I feel guilty and lazy, and all sorts of other evils, and I'm just sick to death of being estranged from something I love so much and has become such a solid part of who I am.

So since I can't moderate this, I'm swinging the goshdarned pendulum the other direction.

See you tomorrow. And the next day. Etc.

how to hit the reset button

1) Check in early at a boutique-y little hotel on Columbus Avenue in San Francisco's North Beach.

Hotel Boheme--the green building

2) Enjoy the room.


3) Oogle over hot Boyfriend.

TheMostImportantGuy

4) Stroll around the neighborhood, take a few photos.


5) Pop into Rose Pistola for a late afternoon snack of sauteed garlicky spinach, grilled broccoli rabe, a salad of roasted beets, and nettle ravioli in marinara.


6) Go to Cobb's Comedy Club, see Jim Norton and laugh a whole lot. I was going to insert a YouTube video here, but the funniest ones aren't kid friendly. Happy hunting, though.... ;-)

7) After the show go out and have a midnight snack at the one very delicious Indian Restaurant (which is oddly connected to an Irish Pub...but whatever...it rocked).

8) Wake up in the morning and have a cappuccino.

not where we had coffee,
but the view from where we sat and had coffee

9) Head over the Castro and hook up with the San Francisco Sock knitters for the monthly meet-up. Have another coffee. Oogle at TheMIG some more.

10) Quick stop at ImagiKnit for a needle and some lovely sterling and glass seed bead stitch markers (spoiled I am, yes).

11) Visit Carleigh, her hubby, and their new baby. (I know, I know....I don't know how I managed to not take a photo of her magical cuteness. It might have been 'cuz daddy was hoggin' da baby---not that I blame him. She's adorable.)

12) Take the scenic route home to the kennel to pick up the DogDogDog.



I am feeling much much better. I really needed the mini-vacation after all that boo-hoo-ing last week. Not that there is anything wrong with boo-hoo-ing, mind you.....but it was a much needed shift.

and even with the best intentions, she is still tardy

Yesterday. It was only 7:10 am. And my entire day got derailed.
By this little guy:



That's a hummingbird in a coffin being prepared for burial. *sigh*

Let me tell you. I did something different yesterday. I let the kittehs out before taking MyFavoriteKid to the bus stop, and clearly that was a fatal error. In the 7 minutes it took me to get there and back, one of the cats caught their very first bird. They were going bananas with it by the time I walked in the door.

Now, I'm not a big fan of my kittens killing any animals. But I know that cats will be cats, and I know that I am going to be seeing more of this. I also know that a HUMMINGBIRD AS A FIRST KILL is pretty danged impressive. But I have some special feelings about hummingbirds, more so than the average bird (sorry, but I do discriminate, apparently).

In Native American spirituality, the hummingbird represents (in some circles) "Joy". So here I am, at 7-something in the morning, being faced with what I see as being "The Death of Joy." Now, this wouldn't be so bad if MrHummingbird was dead....but he was not. He was still alive when I got here. I got him away from the kitties, and I tried real hard to see if there was something I could do for him. He was breathing real hard, and I did some mojo-jojo energy type work to see if I could give him a hand. He opened his eyes and looked at me a few times, and after awhile, his breathing slowed, and he passed.

I lost it. LOST. IT.

Now, I don't want to go on harping about the car accident crap forever, but for those who are newer here and might not have the whole story, the reader's digest version is this:
Getting used to living my life with only one leg is NOTHING compared to living with the memory of being trapped in the car after the accident for two hours before anyone spotted me in my car. I was awake. I went through allllllllll the associated thoughts and emotions, if you can imagine.

How this relates is that this poor bird was dying from a traumatic experience right in front of me the day after the 5 year anniversary of my accident, and....well.....let's just say I cried so much yesterday that I couldn't get my face un-splotchy long enough to take those photos of the shawl.

So I took this one today...



...and now realize that I always seem to cut my head off anyhow, so sheesh....why I didnt just take it all red faced and spotty, I have no idea.

Hypoteneuse
Ravelry project page ~ Ravelry pattern page ~ Designer's pattern page

The other thing I did yesterday, in attempt to settle myself, was to wind 1400 yards of laceweight yarn, "ol' skool" style. For those of you who don't knit or play with string....that is A LOT of yarn to wind by hand.


Don't let the soda can fool you. That is very skinny yarn in one very big ball. It took foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, and it took a whole lot longer than I expected. It's for the next shawl I am about to work on.

I have a few other things to show you, and my PLAN is to be back tomorrow.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

reminder: my comments to your comments are back in the comments. If you even care. Just want y'all to know I DO actually read and appreciate what you have to say!

5 years

Wow. Long time, no blog.
I have thought about the blog DAILY, and have been avoiding the computer like the plague lately.
I have a desire to type, though...and I do have a big chunk of time tomorrow to do so, and so I shall.
But for tonight, I just want to feel cozy and held, maybe knit, and sleep.

on the altar, five years related

Today is the 5 year anniversary of the accident. I knew it was sometime this week, but I wasn't exactly sure which day exactly. That should tell you how much I have moved on. With my logical brain, anyhow.
There is still another part of my brain that keeps track, though....and every year I start behaving oddly a couple of weeks before. Today I had a little anxiety ramping up for no apparent reason, and then remembered the anniversary was this week. I was on the road when I realized it, and had to call TheMostImportantGuy and have him search the archives of my blog to find out the exact date (ha!!).

It was today.

So I decided to knit the last 7 rows of a shawl I have been working on since forever. It's been sitting in my knitting bag and waiting for a simple garter stitch border for 2 or 3 weeks now. Lame. Anyhow, I knit it up, bound it off, soaked it, blocked it. It is drying now. It's a very cozy shawl, like a big giant hug.


Tomorrow it will be "the day after", and I will have a new cozy big giant hug to wrap myself up in, and then all will be right with the world. Sorta. There's still some "stuff" going on.

More photos tomorrow, but really...more of an update ;-)

me. now. 42.

A little photo shoot just for you, taken on the way out the door for the birthday dinner:

Me, normal.

Me, forced smile.

Me, scowling.

Me, vamping you.

In the middle, looking forward, looking back.
Glad nobody tried to put that many candles on my cake ;-)

zen and the art of furniture maintennance

Ok, so I have no idea where I left off, and I'm not going to go back and read my own blog. I cannot stand to be faced with the rambling. I think the last big thing that was happening over here before my hiatus was that I was trying to learn how to parent MyFavoriteKid through his troubles in school, particularly with math. I'm going to tell you all about that for sure, but not today. Today (because apparently venting is an integral part of my emooooootional process *snivel*), we're going to talk about an odd little outburst of tears I had last night.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TheMostImportantGuy had come to visit for the weekend (as he most often does) but it was Sunday, and it was time for him to go.

Now, let it be known: I hate "The Going" part. Once he's actually gone, I'm okay. I mean, he's missed, but I'm not behaving ridiculously. But during "The Going" ?? Egads it's bad. It's so bad that we even have a well established ritual that is intended to lessen the drama. Right before he heads out the door, he pops a hard-candy into my pouting whiny mouth (sugar free or I'd be toothless by now---we've been doing this for years). The sweetness of the candy and his kind gesture keeps me distracted long enough to be keep me relatively happy until he has left and has some distance behind him. Odd, aren't we. I know.

Anyhow, he was headed out the door last night, and I somehow managed to get quite weepy and clingy. It was oddly over the top. About an hour after his departure I started feeling all sick to my stomach, and that's when it finally dawned on me that it wasn't his leaving that was causing the upset. Something else was off kilter. That is when I realized that what was realllllly upsettting me was the dining room table.


Let me rewind and give you the backstory about this table. I've had this table for a long time. It was given to me back in 1994 as a thank you for helping a neighbor move. I'm not sure how long my friend had it before then or how he'd come to have it. I have always loved this table. It's a drop leaf and folds down into a narrow 2-seater. If you pull up the wings up and it seats 4-6 people. Pop in the additional leaf and it seats 6-8. Solid wood. Worn from much use even before it came to me, but lovely.

As much as I love this table, there has always been a part of me pining for something different. Even before this table, I have never owned a "grown up" diningroom table. I either didnt have the space in my apartments, or I couldn't afford one. And this table of mine, being a hand me down, came with a few quirks. One of the pop up wings is a little loose and unstable, and it also always requited a matchbook (or two or three) underneath it to make it even.


When I moved here to the new house a year and a half ago, I only brought 3 pieces of furniture with me, and this was one of them (I went on a rampage and refurnished the whole frickin' house). I have been bitching ever since I got here that I even though I love this table, I really wanted a new table, I just couldnt find exactly the right thing. What I really desire (and maybe I've been watching too much Barefoot Contessa), is a round pedestal table that expands to an oval.

Well, leave it to the fates. Or mercury retrograde. Or something. As of last week, one of the legs of my dining room table is officially falling off.



Like, the wood split. Repairable, if someone has the skill. But I don't. Repairable if I just brought it to someone with skill, but I decided this was the universe telling me that my ideal expandable round table is now out there waiting for me, and so I went looking again, and lo and behold, there it was. By yesterday afternoon, I had found my new table. I ordered it, and it will be here next week. Huzzah.

Immediately after ordering the table yesterday, I took the pictures you see here of the old table, and I posted them on CraigsList. I offered the table for free, provided that whoever took it promised to fix it and love it and not turn it into firewood. Of course, I got a pile of replies, and by the evening, I had made plans for someone (who sounded like a nice woodworky sort of guy who said he would keep it and use it) to come pick it up on Monday (today).

Okay. So this brings us back to the point in the story where TheMostImportantGuy is heading home and I am snivveling with candy in my mouth. Sorry for not giving you the reader's digest version. Thanks for sticking with me if you got this far. Reward yourself with chocolate, my compliments.

So there I was last night, clutching my stomach feeling like I was going to be sick, and that's when I realized what was really going on. Clearly, I am attached to this old dining room table. Rewind some more, and I can tell you that earlier in the week, I also finally disposed of a beloved bedroom lamp that had been shattered beyond recognition, and it was a lamp that I had since I was 19 and in my first very first apartment. I broke the lamp 3 months ago. I didn't have the nerve to toss it out until last week. And right after I tossed it, the table leg broke. Rewind some more, and I can also tell you that earlier last week, I realized that I am all of the sudden feeling very middle aged. I am in my early 40's, but I have close friends in their 50's and 60's (and then some), and I also have close friends in their 20's and 30's. I can totally see where I am going, and I can totally see where I have been. It's an interesting vantage point. I like it. but I feel very "middle-ish" and I'm not exactly sure yet how this is relevant, but I am damn certain that it is.

Then I start tossing out furnishings I have bonded with big time, and well...all hell breaks loose, and I get all emotional and am crying and feeling nauseous, and it's all over a table that I couldn't really wait to replace.

Ahhhhh, The Dining Room Table. So many parties, and so many stories, and so much laughter, and family times, and making food for people and and and ....

You get the drift. Break out your tiny violins.

The bedroom lamp? The one that I used to drape with vintage sheer scarf so it would cast a lovely romatic glow across my boudior? It's now toast.

Having done a tremendous amount of purging of clutter in the past couple of years, I know for a fact that what I am attached to is the memories, not the lamp or the table. In fact, the more I think about it, I might not even be attached to memories. I think I might just be attached to the feelings these objects represent. And that feeling is intimacy.

Figuring this out is making it much easier to let the representative objects go (replacing my lamp with a new one that casts an even rosier glow has not hurt any...and once this new diningroom table is here, y'all are officially extended an open invitation to join me for dinner so I can make me some new memories. You just come on down now, ya' hear??!)

But going through the whole process of figuring out why I was so upset?? What an interesting little pile of internal research that was last night. And shifting from feeling sick inside to being ready to let go, and doing so quickly (in just a few hours) was kinda fun to watch. I hope I can do it at this speed more frequently.

The punchline to my little story, though?? The guy from Craigslist flaked on picking up the table today. I did all this internal work and finally got to the emotional place where I could really let it go....and the table is still here.

watch out....

....she's baaaaaack.


I have lots on my mind and nowhere else to put it but here. You'll be seeing me more over the next few days. The dust has settled, and I finally have time to type.

But not right now. 'Cuz I'm knitting and watching Sense & Sensibility on PBS (Yay, Masterpiece Classics!! WooHoo!! I've been watching every Sunday since the run started in January).

Anyhow. If you missed me, stay tuned. If you preferred the silence, well....consider yourself forewarned ;-) I've missed the blog, and I'm happy to be back.

ten on tuesday

Let's try this again, and see if I get to 10 this time ;-)

Ten On Tuesday
10 Things You're Really Good At

1. Knitting.

2. Buying yarn when I don't really need it.

3. Jumping from irritation to anger.

4. Critiquing restaurants.

5. Cooking and entertaining.

6. Empathizing with other people.

7. Noticing the tiny little things in life that belong on a gratitude list.

8. Putting my foot in my mouth.

9. Creating paper bags full of unopened mail.

10. Wasting time.

..........oh, there is a #11.
Pick myself apart.
Into little itty bitty pieces.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wrote this out quickly, and let me tell you, it's pretty revealing in that it is showing my current state of mind. I am very quick to find fault with myself these last few days, I have noticed. I don't particularly like being in a phase like this, but that's where I am, so might as well sit with it for a few and try to find out why.

My investigation started yesterday when I was driving over to the city to see TheScarDoctor. I realized that I have a whole list of things about myself that are slightly bugging me, or that I would like to change or work on (but am not). They were all small things, but once I noticed they were so many, I realized I had this big massive ball of I'mNotReallyLikingMyself right now. Not so good. It's one of the keys to the depression door, and I'm not real keen on stepping inside that room if I don't have to.

My appointment with TheScarDoc was great. It's really interesting how all that self-loathing resides in the body somewhere, and what happens when you can experience the gift of having someone help you move it all around and maybe get rid of some of it. It helps that as a practitioner (and as a person) he's a really uplifting guy. Besides the bodywork, he also really makes me laugh. There is no better way to avoid opening the door to the DepressionRoom but to just laugh yer arse down the friggin' hallway.

Anyhow. Later in the afternoon yesterday, MyFavoriteKid and I had a parent-teacher conference with his math teacher. I think maybe I have mentioned here on the blog that he's having some trouble, but maybe I haven't. Who knows. I can't keep track. Anyhow. Things aren't going so well for him, particularly in math. I'm not going to bother hashing out all those particulars here, but I do want to get to the part about how I ended up feeling about it all.

Mother-frickin' incompetent.

I know in my head that I'm a good mom. I also know, logically, that it's my first time being a parent (just as it is his first time being a kid), and so in my head I have nooooo problem cutting myself some slack as I muddle my way through parenting. But my insides?? Dudes. I'm a mess. I feel stressed and confused by not knowing what to do. I feel like I am floundering and failing. Add to this the fact that MyFK and I push each other's buttons when the homework-shit-hits-the-fan, and then I get angry, and then gets upset, and then I feel worse for being a bad parent and a bad practicing buddhist who gets so angry all the time.

I am not on some sort of downer or pitty pot at all....IN MY HEAD. Too bad my gut does not agree. My thoughts are fine. The emotions? Oy.

I know I am not the only parent who has this situation. I know what help is out there (I also know what help is not, ie TheEx, but that's a whoooole 'nother post). I am on the path to getting help and support, gaining a few new parenting skills, and....just basically finding my way. MyFK and I are communicating well, and we are loving each other, and we are working on our button pushing, even between all the frustration. ON THE OUTSIDE this is being dealt with. This dilemma is is par for the course, we are making progress in the right direction, and all is good.

The OUTSIDES of the situation are fine.

It's my INSIDES I am worried about.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

snaps on saturday

The Moon.



She is very full :-)

ten on tuesday

Sometime last year I signed up to get weekly notifications from Ten On Tuesday, just in case I ever needed 52 bits of blog fodder. Obviously I did not, and preferred to ramble aimlessly with no direction or focus. I never did take myself off the email list though. I just got the weekly email this morning, and since I no longer have to post....wel....I thought I would.

10 Things You Want To Do In 2009 Similar to your new year’s resolution, but more of a “to do” checklist rather than things that you want to do to improve yourself…

1. Visit my grandma up in the Seattle area.
2. Plant flowers or plants in the box outside the back window.
3. Knit another sweater.
4. Travel more in the van.
5. Get a bike (ok, a trike).
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

~ I chose to focus on the word "want" and tried to avoid listing things I "need" to do or "should" do. You know what? I am finding this very hard! I can come of with a list of probably 27 things that I need to do....but it is a struggle for me to do this when it comes to thinking about what I want!! I find this odd. Part of me is happy that I am not wanting for much. Par of me feels very uninspired. Sheeeit, even now that I look at the 5 that are up there, even they have elements of should attached to them! ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have no idea if I will continue doing these weekly throughout the year, 'cuz I'm fickle like that ;-)

I'm kinda thinking I might stick with the Snaps On Saturday thing I did for most of last year, though....or some version of that.

resolute

While I sit here doing more thinking about yarn, I might as well tell you about a couple of other things I'm tossing onto my "resolution" pile this year.

I hate calling them resolutions, really. They're more like intentions or goals, and they certainly aren't tied to it being a new year. I think what happens with me is that December is always so danged hectic, non-routine, and gluttonous that I see things glaring at me that need adjusting, but I know I don't have time to do anything about it until the holiday chaos and vacations are over. Make sense?

Anyhow, I already wrote about "less time/money on bodywork, and more time/money on working the body". It's still my plan, but of course I've been sicker than shit since I came up with the lovely idea. No working of the body going on over here, unless Marathon Coughing counts. Oh, well. I'll get there. I did at least meet the other half of the goal. I canceled and/or rescheduled bodywork appointments so that there are less of them, so I'm halfway there. The easy half, true...but I'll take what I can get.

Then there was my second intention to clean out the garage to make room for a bike, the third goal about of learning to spin (which at the moment is scheduling-wise in direct conflict with doing some dance rehearsals...so I have to think about how I'm going to make this work). Then there was writing less posts and reading more blogs (got that one handled...it's successfully in progress).

What I forgot to add to my list the other day is that this is the year I will FINALLY keep my word to myself and to all of you and....

REPLY TO YOUR COMMENTS
(you will find them within the comments section)

I keep saying I'm going to do this, and I do it for a stint, and then flake out again. And I cannot stand how I feel about myself for leaving my blog and your thoughts in a vacuum. It haunts me. Makes me feel icky. My notion is:
a) if I could pull off posting every day for a year, isurely it should be cake to reply to comments for a year.
b) if I am posting less now, this should be even easier.

We'll see how this works out.

If 57 of you post comments today I'm gonna kick yer arses ;-)

Then again, I suppose I'd have to suck it up, because John made it known that it is International de-lurking week through the 10th. So have at it, I guess.

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Okay, then there is a goal/resolution that I made mid-year last year, and I want to keep-on-keeping-on with it this year. I don't think I ever wrote about this here, but whether I did or not, it feels like an important part of continuing the behavior for me at this point is to shout it out loud, because I felt myself slipping a wee bit in December.

Sometime in the late summer I think, I realized that I was feeling anxious every single morning.

Now, I've been prone to occasionally just sort of falling into fight-or-flight mode ever since the accident, and I have really figured out that is usually not an obvious thing that gets the wheel turning.

Well, there was this one morning back then when I started feeling the gears beginning to grind, and all of the sudden I heard loud and clear the background music of my life:

television news, or news radio

I was waking up every morning and first thing popping on the TV news. Not really for the news, but for the weather update and the traffic reports. But I'd get the report, and I'd leave the TV on.
Then, when that 1/2 hour of news was over??
I'd still leave it on!!!
FOR BACKGROUND NOISE (I know. I am not very swift.)

So from say, 6am to ohhhhh 9am, the news would be on...and this is the key....with the same half hour of news being repeated every 30 minutes. I mean, I'd be listening to the same horrific tales about child abuse and murders and the economy over and over and over and over and over and over. THEN!! If I got in my car?? I'd turn on the news radio! Same thing (let's not point at that the traffic always comes up every 10 minutes on the 8's, so it's real simple to get that info and skip the rest. Like I said. Swift.) And then guess what!!! If I was around, I'd catch the noon news, or maybe the evening news, and oh....I would ALWAYS catch a half hour of news during the late night somewhere.

People: I DONT EVEN LIKE HEARING THAT MUCH NEWS.

I think I just like hearing people talking or some shit. I dunno. I never quite figured that part out, but I think mabye hearing people talk makes me feel less lonely or something maybe?? Possible. I dunno. WHATEVER. I didn't waste my time wondering.

So I cut myself off. Since then, I now allow myself a half hour in the morning. I didn't cut myself off cold-turkey, but I probably could do that now, and just get what I need on the internet. I mostly still do the half hour report. But the second I hear a story being repeated? Off it goes. I am now listening to more music, or....get this one (especially you, mom)....I LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF PEACE AND QUIET.

Dudes. My life has changed dramatically. I cannot believe that it took me so long to notice, but honestly, it had just become a habit and a background noise. It just no longer seemed out of the ordinary, and I can see how I overlooked it. But, DUH. Anyhow I saw myself lapse a couple of times last month, and like I said, I'd like to keep my new habit in tact, so I'm brining it back up to the forefront of my mind again, because apparently turning the shit off is not quite automatic yet.
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The last resolution/plan/goal/cockamamie idea I am working with right now is about the yarn, but again....I'm still thinking. I don't think I can come up with a plan around fiber that I can realistically work with until I have figured out what and why I do what it is I do with yarn in the first place (both the working with it and the purchasing of it), and that's the pondering piece going on over here.

Again, more coming soon. I just need to do a bit more reflecting.

Which of course, does absolutely nothing to put the yarn in the direction of becoming any form of knitted item.

Y'all are soooo glad that the 2008 version of Blog365 ended and that I jumped off the bandwagon for 2009. Had I ran with it, you'd have been staring at 4 straight days of kvetching. I kid you not.
I am soooo sick!!

I started feeling poopy last Monday night, and it's been escalating ever since. It has been the oddest cold. I keep hoping that I'll go to bed and wake up feeling better in the morning. Instead, I wake up feeling worse in the morning, but by mid-day I feel like I'm on the upswing. Feeling better of course, I am then able to see the piles of used tissues and empty soup bowls, so I set myself to cleaning up....or let's be honest....embarking on other projects. This of course, makes me feel run down again. By nighttime I am exhausted, but then when I actually lay down in bed and put my head on the pillow, I cannot sleep! The angle kicks the cough up something fierce, even if I prop myself up. I toss and I turn, coughing and blowing my nose all night (I have been coughing so much, I can barely speak--which I am sure have a few people in my life just tickled pink). Then in the morning I get up and do the whole routine all over again. So. Much. Fun.

I've not just been plain old sick, either. Other points of interest involving my physicality this week were flipping my wheelchair over (with me still sitting in it, obviously) and cranking my neck into some twisted knot of doom....and thennnnnnn (you'll love this one) I was closing a kitchen cabinet door the other day and I konked myself in the face so hard it literally cleared up my sinuses. But now I have a headache. It's really something to have a headcold and be blowing your nose all the time when one side of it is all swollen and bruised. Whee.

ANYHOW, even being sick (and mute), I have managed to get a few things done during this last week of MyFavoriteKid's winter break:

* Broke down the holiday decorations, and got them back out into the garage (which is a freakin' mess, and I was going to work on reorganizing that this weekend, but was too sick to be out there in the freezing cold). I usually add a piece or two each year to my holiday collection. This year it was a felted snowman and tree that I bought from Chimera on etsy (yes...I realize I could have made this myself, but really...was I ever going to? Probably not. Did I already have the materials? No. So I chose to support a crafter). This year during the post-holiday sales, I also went on a quest for a Light Up Lawn Deer. You know, the kind where the head bobs back and forth? Well, I went hunting, but no deer. But I did score a moose for 80% off ;-)

* The reinstatement of the semi-annual purge of MyFK's bedroom. He and I used to do this together twice a year. Once in June before his birthday, and once in early December before the holidays. We'd go through every bit of his room and get rid of stuff he no longer used or needed, and we'd also comb through the closet for clothes that were worn out or no longer fit. We'd make a run to the donation place, and then he'd have space for incoming gifts or clothes that would fit. Only problem? We broke from the twice a year tradition when we moved here, and that means we hadn't done it in a year and a half (well, we'd done the clothing....but not the other stuff). His room wasn't a mess really, but there was no way he was going to have room to store anything new, especially bigger things like a basketball and a skateboard, which he got this year from Hannukah Harry.

* I knit a hat. I'm actually spending all of my knitting energy right now completing my last (and sadly long overdue, at this point) PayItForward Project. I am very close (it requires a ton of finishing work), and I will not stray off on other projects until it is complete. It is, however, a project too cumbersome to travel with, and it is freezing cold here (literally), so I started a hat to fiddle with while sitting at MyFK's basketball practices. This is my second hat in this pattern (you might recall the first one, which fit my friend better than myself):

Meret The 2nd (link to my ravelry project page)

* Starting to catch up on blogs. In no particular order of importance. I do have to show you one photo I ran into over at Kris Carr's blog:

A sheep with a prosthesis!!

* Teaching the Kitties About The Great Outdoors. Not that they need to be taught, mind you. They are both strays that were plucked directly from the great outdoors. I just haven't been letting them out since they came to live with us because of the hawks that fly around the hill behind the house. Well, the other day they bolted out the door one morning, so I was forced into it. They've been out for a bit every day since and the dog babysits.

L to R: Gaara (well ok, Gaara's butt...sorry), Mr.Darcy & Riley

Last, but not least, I have spent some time:
* Thinking about yarn. Just thinking about it. Like about how much I have and what to do about it. I'm still in the thinking stage, but I have some ideas.

More on that in another post, though.
I've already gone on too long.

See? If I was blogging daily, you'd just have gotten this same exact post all chopped up into little daily bits.

Nothing has changed here but frequency.

So go ahead. Pass me that can of Shut-The-Fuck-Up, will ya'?? ;-)
hahaha