Taking Another Step into Firstville

I recently set up an Etsy store. YES!!, I did it. Another first for me. The cupboard is still bare so no link for you yet, but I have been a crocheting fool, working at perfecting my hand warmers. I've been working with several simple patterns, following the directions, taking the results apart and putting them back together again, and generally discovering the yarns I most enjoy working with as well as the hook size.

I've been worrying over variations in hand size so have been enlisting my friends to be hand models. Biene is my size small and it looks as though chaining 28 sts for a foundation with a G or H hook works for a small. Thirty is good for medium. Krista is my medium model. A 32 st base is good for large hands. I'm keeping track of the yarn type and weight and hook size of each warmer and writing the information on a piece of paper to tuck into one glove of each pair.

I'm pretty much going on a wing and a prayer, as I approach the organizing and understand of the craft, with quite a lot of trial and error mixed in. But it seems to be coming together. And why, you may ask, is she producing hand warmers now that spring and summer are approaching? Well, that may be but as close as I can tell, it is always winter somewhere on the planetand no one knows that better than we blogging friends do. Right?

Crossing the Road

Today is Reading Day. The last day of classes was yesterday and finals start tomorrow. Driving into the parking lot this morning was a quiet experience. No cars! But there sure were plenty of road hazzards. Check out the locals and warm wishes for a wonderful day to all of you.

Continuing the Interlude

Mikim posted something at her blog about $600/lb coffee. Coffee drinker that I am, I just HAD to post her link here. Coffee lovers everywhere, enter at your own risk. My personal take on this coffee is - eewww!

Land of Mystery

For as long as I've had Mapcluster on my site, I've been fascinated by the absence of activity in the old Soviet Union. I've wondered, for a year now, when I might get a hit in that mysteriously cyberless world. Well, this week it happened.

There is one tiny red dot on my Mapcluster map tucked away in the Russian Federation. Somewhere east of Kazakhstan, north of China, and west of Mongolia, a lone blogger clicked in for just a moment. There was no message so I'm left to imagine who this rare bird might be. Whoever he or she may be, if you see this know that you are acknowledged. I saw you and you were the first to start filling up that sadly blank part of my map.

Welcome.

Bad Dreams

As I forge through my second week with Jenny, I find I have been passing some very difficult evening challenges. I've had two evenings in a row that I've wanted to EAT. Interestingly, I wasn't hungry. However, last night I was aware of Don's post cataract surgery condition (no problems) and was deeply concerned about Krista's illness.

I suppose it doesn't really matter how old your child is when they have been derailed by these sorts of illness; one always worries while trying to be reassuring. So I was hit by the challenge of comfort eating. Comfort eating has always been a way to distract myself from my immediate concerns. I got through it. Rewiring of the old habits continues but my brain got angry with me and in the middle of the night hit me with a nasty dream about my mother. Sometime during my sleep this night I was hit with a very troubling dream.

I found myself on the 3rd floor of a very long building. It appeared as though I entered from a middle entrance. Once I reached the 3rd floor I turned right and started down a long hallway. The hall was so long, starting at the mid-point of the building, that I could not see the information desk/nursing station I was seeking. Eventually I arrived.

When I arrived at the nursing station I was given my mother's room number. This alone seemed odd to me that I did not know her location ahead of time, just that she was there in the building. The room number was a 4 digit number with an 11 in there somewhere. The most disturbing part o f the dream was being told that the resident doctore would not see my mother or do anything to help her. This would have included care and comfort. From there the dream started to unravel and I never did see myself going in search of my mother's room.

I'm sure that on some level my brain was reacting in anger to my not giving in to the comfort eating impulse last night. Krista has been very sick as well with a viral infection an ulcer in her throat and badly swollen glands behind both ears. I have been wearing the mother hat of caring for my sick child and also remember clearly how out of control I felt to help my mother.

The Pirate and his first mate

This morning went as usual but instead of going to work I took Don to the medical center to have the first of two cataract surgeries. He got his first implant (as opposed to lens replacement) on his right eye. In two weeks he will have the left eye taken care of. Having the implants, he will be able to see without wearing glasses for the first time since he was 4-5 years old.

Being at the hospital reminded me of one of the important reasons I signed on with Jenny Craig - for the sake of my health. After years of taking care of a sick mom and more years watching my dad deal with cancer, I have concluded that if I actually have 25-30 years left in me, I sure don't want to live them in poor to declining health. With a history of heart disease and hypertension and strokes on both sides of my mom's family, I am a prime candidate for the same.

Yes, my self-image has suffered over the years due to lots of internal pressures, but those realities don't exist anymore, only the bad results that come with unconscious comfort eating and the old mind tricks that just have to be deprogrammed. In these last decades of my life, I want to experience things fully and with strength and clarity.

So, that being said, I'm off to take care of lunch and then leave for work around 1 p.m. Dr. Lee says Don (the pirate with his eye patch) did just fine and can be on his own.

My Lucky Day

Sometimes things just come together. Just a few days ago Corey asked at the end of one of her posts what it was we loved to collect. My DH would have a single word answer for this question. Everything. Yes, DH who keeps very little married a woman who has a hard time letting go of things. In my defense, he would agree though that I have improved - somewhat. The big problem is that when you have so much it takes a long time before making a dent in the pile becomes visible.

Getting back to Corey's question - I though about it for a while and it suddenly hit me that it was my little collection of Frozen Charlottes that was the real answer. I had quite a few of these via my grandmother and over the years they were lost and/or broken. By the late 70's I had one left that I kept in a wooden basket filled with bits and pieces of shells, cacti skeletons, and small rocks. It was after my cat decides to take a romp through my room and disrupted the top of my dresser, that I lost this last vestige of my grandmother's gifts to me. And that is when I realized their true value and I started looking for them to recreate my collection. I still have the broken bits of my last one.

I haven't added to my collection for a while mainly because when I find them now in antique shops and malls, they are wildly overpriced. But after Corey's question, I was inspired to start looking for these little treasures on eBay. I found a few that I decided to watch and then bid on one whose times was running out. And lucky me - this morning I found a message telling me that I had made the winning bid.

My little treasure is being mailed to me tomorrow but here I share her for you all to ooh and ah over. Isn't she sweet? I have three more now that I'm bidding on. Wish me luck.

Peaceful Moments

Sunrise and Almond Blossoms













And the tradition continues. Kris and I love going to the teashops around town. Here she is in her hat du jour. Later it was replaced by her favorite top hat. I love the pretty red and pink feathers of this one.

Every year in late winter to early spring the mating dances start and each year an experienced female finds her way to the protected greenery of the patio garden.

It's Only Thursday

It has been a rough week at work - so rough in fact, that I've avoided my computer for the past couple of nights. I'm working on some projects that require a lot of close work, going back and forth between screens on the monitor, formatting spreadsheets and generally just giving me one huge pain in my neck. On the upside - well, I'm getting a lot done at work. On the downside? I'm not getting very far on my kitchen; the file drawers are waiting to be filled, and I have about ten more pages to read to finish Reading Lolita in Terhan.

Reading right now is like slogging my way through knee high deep molasses. The world is full of distractions, none of them very interesting, just distracting. I've been trying to shake off a bit of sadness again and have come to the conclusion that there is something to be said for the approach of a full moon.

I find my mind busy with creating the end results of severa; home projects but they don't get any farther than my head. My list goes something like this:

1. Take a Before Picture of the bedroom linen closet.
2. Get to work curing that closet.
3. Take an After Picture of the CURE closet
4. Post it here and claim bragging rights.

5. Move to the kitchen nightly for one week.
6. Each evening do a bit of painting and sealing.
7. Take the After Picture of the finished west side of the kitchen.
8. Post pictures here and claim more bragging rights.

9. Begin anywhere - but be sure to begin - and start putting together mom/dad history.
10. Topics - photos, cards, accts, medical stuff, heritage paperwork.
11. Etc.
12. Etc.
13. Etc.

There's more, I'm sure, but it's a start. Hummmm, didn't mean to end on 13 on purpose but . . . well, could be a sign . . . of something anyway.

On to other things -

Corey's in California for a short visit and we've been talking about getting together now for a couple of months. Unfortunately, her dad is sick and it takes up (and rightly so) a lot of her time. And now he's feeling a bit better (Thank God) and it became abundantly clear to Corey and I that trying to fit a meet-up in was going to be too hard. So now we are talking about July. I can take lots of time off in the summer so that will give me a lot of flexibility. So, until July Corey . . . oh, and that hit and run at Starbucks on the 9th as we drive up to Portland. I'm going to try and make that happen.

That's another thing, we are driving to Portland Oregon (well, Forest Grove actually) for Erin's bridal shower. We leave March 9th. We will be meeting all of Erin's VERY LARGE family. Yikes!! Quiet, shrinking violet that I am, it will be tough going. LOL The wedding's in June so I'm hoping that I can actually do a meet-up of some of you Oregon bloggers. Not sure of our itinerary yet but it would be nice.


And in closing - one final thing. I got the nicest surprise in the mail today. An envelope arrived for me from Lee-Ann in Australia. I've been admiring her garden while mine is dead in the water thanks to some very severe frosts this year. So what do I find but this lovely garden magazine for summer 2007. Mind you, this is Australia so the summer is NOW. I love the seasonal twist and hope to find lots of good tips and inspiration from this wonderful surprise. Thank you so much Lee-Ann and also for the pretty card and lovely note that accompanied it.

Reading and Writing and Painting, Oh My!

I seem to have struck on a theme in the last couple of days. The Wizard of Oz has struck again and I unrepentantly free associate from Lyman Frank Baum's "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! But that is what I did today". Last night I crashed at 9 pm which is a minimum of 2 hours early for me. Even more amazing, I awoke at 7 am after sleeping straight through without interruption. I don't even remember laying down last night. I think it was the meds. LOL

So after waking, I check my email, etc. and then made myself comfortable reading more of Reading Lolita in Tehran. I knew I had a big day of writing ahead of me and reading this excellent book and following up with a NAP (what??? is getting into me???) I was ready to head out the door.

I met with my spiritual director, Fr. Silva, this past Thursday and after a couple of days of letting the meeting sinking in, I finally understood what reading Benedict's Deus Caritas Est meant to me. Click here please for more about that.

The efforts to finish the painting in my kitchen continue. I started painting the case where the oven/microwave combination used to be. I have to finish painting that before the new oven is installed. If I don't, I'll be playing heck painting and avoiding dropping paint on the oven. That would not be a pretty outcome. I have before pictures in progress and will post it all on a later post.

I finished my Good Things report for the week and my day has come to a satisfying and accomplishment-filled ending.