meh.

I get a little (a little?!?) whiny when I'm sick, and guess what. I AM SICK.  *sigh*

I started feeling the tickle Friday night.  Saturday I knew I should try to get ahead of it by laying low, but I had a focus group to go and I had already paid in advance for tickets to take MyFavoriteKid and a couple of his buddies to see the new Hobbit movie. By Saturday night I felt even crappier (despite vitamins and zinc and all the rest of the homeopathic whatnot I have in my little apothecary).

By Sunday morning I felt like I'd been punched in the face, plus my throat was hurting a bit, too.  I laid low (finally) pulled some homemade soup I had stashed in the freezer for an emergency just like this one, and by the afternoon I felt improved and did a few tasks. A few too many tasks.  Was wiped again by Sunday evening and now here it is Monday, and I'm still a wreck.

I'm off to bed now (a little too late) after a day full of not getting a whole lot of anything done, and can only hope tomorrow will be better!  I've got things to do, man!!

snaps on sunday

Should have been a snap on Saturday, I know....but I've got a nasty head cold, and was down for the count a bit early last night. Fell asleep before posting!

So tonight I bring you....

....the Princess and The Pea.

date night in napa

partay

A lilltle wiped out. Tonight was TheMostImportantGuy's company holiday party and that meant many hours if travel by car and train, us everything in between....like the party part! 

I have no photographic evidence of the evening 

Thank goodness. 

LOL

scenes from last weekend

On Sunday, TheMostImportantGuy was Chicago bound on a business trip and MyFavoriteKid was at a drum corps audition. I had the day to myself to decorate for the holidays.  Being alone meant I could enjoy an eggnog and listen to all the Holiday tunes I wanted to! 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... 

high school winter concert

MyFavoriteKid's first time performing with the Jazz Ensemble :-)

And then first time doing percussion for the Wind Ensemble (rather than playing clarinet like before)....

 ...which means now I only get "top of head" shots!

testing testing

Posting using my phone using a new (to me) app.  

Here we go. Crossing fingers! I really need this to work for me!

 

Photo taken yesterday at an Open Studio event. I spotted it on an artist's inspiration board in her workspace!

i'm not sure exactly what is going on here

Long time no blog, eh?

I'm not sure exactly what is going on with me.  At first I thought I was just frustrated with technological issues and the lack of ease of posting. Then I thought I had things to say but was just too busy to say them.  Then I thought I had nothing to say at all. Then I thought I did have something to say, but it sounded rather depressing or whiny. Then I ended up being too depressed to post at all.  THEN I finally realized that maybe part of my feeling depressed was because I stopped posting in the first place.

Well, however I got to this spot, here I am.

If you were to look at me from the outside, there's not a whole lot going on with me. Pretty much the same ol', same ol'.   But it feels like my internal life is exactly the opposite of that. Way too many thoughts and feelings about all sorts of stuff. Sometimes when there is that much going on in my crazy inner world I start looking like a deer in the headlights.  I freeze in my tracks.

At the forefront of my crazy-brain:

~ I have some anniversaries happening, and contemplating marking them creates an overly sentimental me.  TheMostImportantGuy and I just celebrated 10 years together last month.  That was a good one. The best, actually :-)  And February marks 20 years of dancing, also good (except see the next item on this list, and you'll maybe understand why it's a little emotional), and....next March it will be 10 years since the car accident. I'm not sure exactly where that fits in to the scheme of things (ie my mood), but it has me thinking about it more than usual, so it must be doing something to my mood.

~ I am planning on taking a break from teaching dance (in its present form) in the spring.  For a couple of years I have felt like I need to let it go and make room for something else, and I keep waiting for that something else to appear first so that I'll know when it's time to quit teaching.  I've been waiting so long for that thing to appear though, that I think I might the order reversed. I think I need to let go and make space first so something else can come in.  You know, when one door closes, another opens, and all that.  It's like I'm trying to wait for the next door to open before I close this one, but that usually isn't how it works for me. Usually the door has to shut, and there is time spent in the corridor waiting for the next door to open.  I've always been keen to point out that, "the hallways can be such a bitch."  But they don't need to be. So I'm working myself up to be HappyInTheHallway for ahwile.  Sometimes "Not Knowing" is a really clean place to be.
  
~ I'm watching MyFavoriteKid grow into his own very awesome young man. I am in awe of him, to be honest with you. I know I'm his mom and all and we all think most highly of our own kids, but I swear to you, if I wasn't his mom and I met him somewhere randomly, he'd impress me.  So what's happening now is that I'm dealing with that thing I guess almost every mother has to deal with at some point: that happy-sad thing as you let them go. It's a beautiful and awesome feeling. And at the same time it hits me in the chest in a way that makes me want to sing achy-breaky country songs. LOL  I know y'all know what I'm trying to say here. 

~ I'm worried about James (the guy at the convalescent hospital that I volunteer visit), and my responsibility for his care has shifted, and I'm really muddling my way through it all, to be honest.

~ I've been in therapy for a few months now, both solo, and in couple's counseling with TheMIG. All is well between us.  Really. It is. Fear not.  We are doing great. We're just getting some help learning how to understand where each other is coming from, 'cuz lemme tell ya'...we come from entirely different backgrounds and we grew up with some extremely different family cultural norms, and it's like we speak different languages sometimes. It's been a real gift to have someone (our therapist) translate for us, and even better, teach us how to do it ourselves so we're aren't dependent on the guy. Love it.  In my own personal therapy, I am learning how some behaviors that I learned (or perhaps was taught) very early in life pretty much pop up in every. single. place. in my life. that I look.  I'd really like to write about it, but because it involves my family (who are readers), I'm not sure I can.  I've been deeply considering another blog about it all elsewhere and being a ghost-writer or assuming some crazy pen-name (like there is anything crazier than AmpuTeeHee..??)

~ I am seriously struggling with what it is taking me to manage two households (TheNewDiggs and YeOldeHaus).  It's going to take me a much a longer post to dive into that, but I will eventually because quite frankly, I'm probably going to need advice.  But for now, I'll just say that it's weighing on me far more than it probably should be. I'm probably making things more complicated than they need to be.


So. That's where I'm at.
A whole lot of mulling things over, basically. Not a bad thing really, except you pair all the thinking and feeling with the cold snap we're having, and I'm just quite happy huddling up in my cozy little hidey-hole over here, and that's why you haven't seen much of me!

Now that I've broken my own ice, let's see if that puts me back on track again.

can't win

the clink

I am tempted to do a search on my own blog and see how many times "Poor Riley" shows up, but quite frankly...I don't wanna know.

When Riley woke up this morning he had a limp, and by an hour later he was hopping around like a 3-legged dog.  I called the vet first thing and lined up a noon-thirty appointment. 

The little hole on his "thigh" had closed over pretty well (I had trimmed the hair away and doused him with a medicinal spray given to us for Teeny's last adventure).  But there was another little pin-prick of a hole on his "ankle", and the whole ankle was swollen.  The vet said the puncture wound was deep and it went right into the joint. If it was from a wild or feral animal (which I am sure it was), they carry crazy bacteria in their mouths.  She shave his leg and found more little holes on the other side of his ankle bone.  Where I thought it was the poke of a claw, it was more likely a bite.

Lovely.

More shaving, some drainage arrangements, and while he was out, I had them clean his teeth (might as well spare him another vet visit later...it was overdue).  The doc said they were moving his leg around while he was knocked out and his heart rate went up indicating much pain.  When I pick him up tomorrow morning, he'll come home with "a party hat"....a broad spectrum antibiotic that will be switched to a more specific antibiotic once the cultures they took show results...a few types of pain meds...and the need for hot compresses.

Do you have any idea how many times we've been through stuff like this?  Not just for Riley, but "times four" once you count how many times I've done this for the other animals that live here? I am so over it. I LOVE MY PETS. They are my family.  But this is getting a little crazy.

Anyhow.
Riley's in TheClink tonight.  I'll spring him tomorrow.

*sigh*

curse you, blogger! and you too, cat!!

That's it. I am going to need to find a better solution to remote posting. I have to. Because bouncing back and forth between two houses with a 17" laptop just aint gonna happen. I have to be able to blog with my phone, or I have to give up my post-a-day habit.

On Friday night, I made a post about MyFavoriteKid performing. It didn't go live until Saturday, thereby causing me to miss Friday altogether.  Then, I made a photo heavy SnapsOnSaturday post on Saturday proper, and it bounced due to the file being too huge!!  arrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!  Sunday I had content, and created a post with a photo, but just left it stuck in note format. Defeated. I am defeated.

I'm not sure yet what I am going to do about all this.

And meanwhile, while I was sitting here typing this up and working on re-posting all the back stuff....
I let Riley out back for his final whizz of the evening, and he was attacked by some animal hiding in the bushes!!  We have had skunks and racoons lately, but I think this might have been that damn feral cat.  I saw him across the street earlier.

Anyhow...I heard Riley yelping and some other animal making some crazy noises and then Riley came running back with his tail between his legs when I opened the door.  I have now found several puncture wounds on his legs, so I have to go do some snipping of hair and dabbing wounds.  I'm hoping this isn't another vet bill from hell.

you know you're old when...

...you go to a pub on a Friday night to see a rock band....

...and the drummer is your kid!!

(Sent via iPhone, cross yer fingers this even works LOL)

off the wagon

I'm not even off track. I'm entirely off the wagon, aren't I.

Well, the best I can do for either of us right now is to share with you this video of MyFavoriteKid's performance at their final drumline competition this weekend.  It's sort of a big deal because while they placed 2nd out of the 3 bands in their division, the Percussion section (yes, capital "P") took FIRST PLACE OVERALL.  That means that Percussion (and MyFK is on snare) took 1st Place out of 15 bands, and several of the bands they overtook are bands that are two categories higher than then in terms of proficiency during the winter drumline season. BIG DEAL.

If you want to spare yourself the full performance, I suggest clicking forward to the 6:10 minute mark where you can see an isolated percussion-only section.  Oh, and if you wait for the 7:15 minute mark...? The kid making that freakin' awesome catch on the rifle??? He's part of the Hands In Motion Club that I facilitate at the high school, the group where the kids make things by hand and donate then to charity. In other words, he's a knitter ;-) 

error message

Something isn't working between me and blogger and trying to upload post with photos using my phone. 

I'm fine. And I love it that some of you check on me to see if I am dead or not when I miss a day :-)

I haven't had much actual computer/laptop access is all, but I have posts in que that I'll upload by the end of the weekend, so join me for a cuppa something and a game of catch up Monday!
xo

upcycle

This picture isn't current, and I'd probably posted it way back when, when I took it.

I'm just in a wonky mood (nothing like an hour in therapy discovering you have yet more issues to work on), and so here I am, looking through old photos trying to unwind so I can get some sleep.

Here.
Here's another.

Happy bunny in the garden.

No?

Ducks in dumpsters, maybe?

Hahahaha.
Yah. Okay, that worked. 

Nothing like a good chuckle for a nightcap ;-)

looks way too familiar

boxes on the brain

Planter boxes, that is.

Now that we are done remodeling the interior of TheNewDiggs, our attention is turning to the yard.  We're going to start by fixing up the front yard, the border beds, really....and trying to figure out how to hide (but leave accessible) the city back-flow thingy that is an ugly eyesore right there on the front lawn.

But I'm also starting to more seriously ponder vegetable gardening in TheBack40, as we call it.  It's a huge space to garden in. Over the past 2 years while we've worked on the interior, I've been watching the sun and the water, to see where everything lands naturally. We've taken some gardening classes, started to compost (sort of...we need to ramp it up, though).

I'm not ready to install a full vegetable garden until I am living there full time (another year and a half away), but it's not too early to start the design process.  It's not to early to start researching surfaces that are wheelchair friendly, beds that are narrow and easy to reach across from a seated position, raised beds that have a edge on them that can be sat on.

I made the mistake at YeOldHouse of putting in some raised bed that I can't get a wheelchair out to. Stupid!  I have the perfect spot to grow stuff, and I can't get out there to prattle around in the garden.  I wont make that mistake twice!





So that's what I'm doing. Planning, planning, researching, researching....saving up for pathway materials and someone to help install them. Daydreaming, really.  But hopefully with a tangible end in sight!

i...i....

....I am at a loss for words.

(info)

snaps on saturday

Local (very local) Open Mic Night....

...featuring one very little girl singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (and a couple of other songs, all made up, and all to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star) :-)


Today MyFavoriteKid had an all day rehearsal/competition day, and I sat it out!  I went to a "Crafternoon" hosted by a local artist's group in town called TheHub, where I was steered to a divey (and most excellent) Indian Food Restaurant that we'd never discovered because it was hidden in a strip mall we never pull into.

Good Day. Got ahead on my knitting, as I also knit at the open mic night!

happiness is....

Rolling in late to the Friday morning knitting group, only to find the a birthday party is in full swing....

...complete with fancy cheeses and olives and pastries....
mimosas and handmade liquers.

Then heading straight from there over to the Interweave KnitLab to do a little shopping with a few of the girls...

Good times.
Good company.
And a little bit of good yarn came home with me too! :-)