So. Where are we now? On my way, I guess. The house is getting tidier a bit at a time, and I think it's starting to affect my brains. As I sort through the crap that sits in my house, taking up valuable space, it seems to be freeing up parts of my mind.
wow.. this sounds all sorts of.. esoteric? would that be the right word? I hesitate to continue, because I feel like I'm getting overly dramatic or something. But let's keep going and see just how crazy/schmoopy/weird/new-agey/whatever this thing gets, shall we?
I'm trying to establish routines in my day. So like, when I make a mess in the kitchen, I try to clean it up right away. Totally obvious, I know. But in my younger, lazier days, mostly I'd just pile everything into the kitchen sink, clean up the scraps/mess and make sure I could find the coffee pot. Then clean later, when I felt like it. Now we keep the kitchen tidy pretty much 'cause we have to, or otherwise there will be no bottles for the bebehs. That started with E, and now with Fi, we keep it up and have extended to keeping the dishwasher empty (no clean dishes sitting in there for days, while we keep piling up the sink). I'm trying to remember to sweep the floor once a night (after the kiddos go to bed, and the dishes are done, and the food from dinner put away).
god. writing that sounds like we lived like animals. maybe we did, and just fooled ourselves into thinking we weren't slobs, we were just unconcerned about housework and had better, more interesting things to do. tomato, tomahto.
Now, I have to get a handle on the laundry. Currently it's all piled up around the house, in cat-free areas, because I have a cat who seems to think that the combination of Downy and cat pee is just glorious, and must pervade the entire house. Have I mentioned I kind of hate this cat? I mean, I really love her, but come on. I can't leave clothes laying anywhere, or she pees on them. Effective human training, I suppose. The clean stuff is in the kiddos' bedrooms, because those doors must remain shut or the damn cat pees on their beds. Asshole. But I can't have those kids living in rooms where there's crap piled everywhere, so I've been going through the attic, removing all the stuff we no longer need. Old clothes of mine that don't fit or are more suited for the 20-year-old I was when I bought them. Bedding for single beds. We have one single bed in the house, but its owner will not allow sheets on it that are not pink or have Hello Kitty or Disney Princess on them. Perhaps Tinkerbell might suit, but the ones in the attic are green flannel and sort of manly. So off to Goodwill with the clothes and sheets. Some stuff was just nasty, so in the trash it went. Finally, after much clearing out, I have drawer space, and storage tubs with nothing in them, and space for stuff we actually use at least part of the year. And I have to get my lazy arse in gear now, and get the stuff put away.
ok, no big deep psychological revelations yet. just the fact that apparently, I am getting over being a slob and a pack rat, hopefully before my kids are old enough to remember that I was ever like that. I wonder if my mom was the same way? Probably not. She was probably mopping up the floor after her own birth, her tiny newborn hands clenched into fists around one of those old-timey mop buckets with the wringer on the side.
I feel like the universe is kicking up the dust in my life, too. The other day, I ran into someone who I have quite literally tried to avoid for almost 5 years. Mostly because of a nasty falling-out, but the relationship was deteriorating long before the batshit-crazy blowup that finally ended it all. It all started innocently enough - I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home from work, and Phantom From The Past was at the opposite end of the coffee aisle when I started walking up it to get my Folgers. You have that moment when you're like, "OK, RUN!!" but I thought, "No. You are a grown-ass woman who is trying to raise two daughters to hopefully be less of a pushover than you were growing up. Running like a chicken is not going to advance that agenda." So I screwed on my big girl britches and marched on up the aisle to get my coffee. Brief pleasantries were exchanged, my theory that the crazy in this person had not subsided at all was confirmed, and I got my Breakfast Blend and was on my way.
What happened over the rest of the weekend was totally cool though. All of a sudden, I found myself in more interesting conversations with my neighbors. Whereas before, we were more of the "hello in the driveway" type of neighbors, saying hi and bye on our way into and out of the house to go to work or out and about, next thing I know, our kids are playing together in my yard. We went swimming in the next-door-neighbor's pool. The neighbors across the street invited my daughters and I to the picnic they were having to celebrate their son's baptism. Their daughter and her friend came to my porch and did crafts with E. For the first time in the years since we bought our house, our family is finally Part of the Neighborhood.
I can't say that getting past the hurdle of the Phantom was the impetus to my developing new relationships with people in my life. But I feel that in the grander scheme it might have been. I mean, anyone who knows which particularly crazy part of my life I'm referring to, knows that while I had no problem staying away from this person after they went all the way around the bend, I was a little spooked by new people afterwards. I kind of like to just have my few close friends, and a whole bunch of casual acquaintances. I've always been that way, but after the incident where I made a New Friend, got wrapped up in being ultraclose with that friend, and had it turn into Total Drama Island, it just sort of reinforced that becoming close to random strangers is not the best strategy for me. I'm not going to go out and become besties with all the neighbors now, but I do think I can get past the idea that people I don't know aren't worth the trouble of knowing because they could possibly be completely bonkers. But I can kibbitz with the moms in the neighborhood, or participate in activities. I can friend people on Ravelry just because they seem like nice folks with pretty projects in their queues. I can maybe even (schedule and finances permitting) go out and take yoga classes, or find a knitting group to participate in once in a while. Who knows? All because I cleared that hurdle.
And, since this is so friggin' long now, I'll have to expound on other ways I'm clearing out the cobwebs another time.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Crisis?
Ohhhh, boyoboyoboyoboyoboy. I need to examine a lot of things, I think, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to do that with my husband. He’s not really much for talking about things, talking them out… he’s more of the “What’s the problem, OK, here are the issues, let’s resolve it” kind of guy. And until I get to that point, where I can actually identify what the heck my deal is, I don’t think I can talk to him about it.
I also don’t think I can talk to my mom about it either. God bless her, but she instantly assumes that either it’s something to do with her, or it’s something that she doesn’t want to hear and she gets upset and worried. I think she has in her mind an idealized version of me that she wants me to be, and as long as I don’t shatter that illusion, we’re all good. Which is fine with me – I can be who I wish I were with her, and figure myself out another way.
This strategy has benefited me in the past. Years ago, I was adrift like this and decided I might have to re-enroll in college. I’d dropped out when I was a senior. Frightening, how easy it is really. You just stop going. Nobody comes looking for you; nobody asks you when you’re coming back. I was even working for the damn college at the time. The end of the year came, and I didn’t have enough credits to graduate, and I just didn’t re-enroll. I remember thinking at the time that there had to be some sort of fail-safe there. That, just like when you’re living at home, and you’re about to do something irresponsible, someone will come along and say, “Hey, what are you doing? This is a bad idea. Here’s why.” You might not listen – hell, I never listened when my parents told me not to do something. In fact most of the time, I ended up doing it anyway. It was my first lesson in real life. You can just stop doing something, and unless you’ve formed emotional ties with someone in an administrative function, or even a close relationship with a professor, chances are, nobody’s going to question it. That struck me as weird, I remember.
So years go by, and I start mulling around the idea of going back to school. Stupidly, I mention this to my mother, who has been after me to go back ever since I dropped out. The look on her face when I tell her that I’m thinking of returning just kills me – all that hope, relief that maybe I’ve come around. I’d told bullshit lies before, it was sort of commonplace. Nothing that hurt anyone up to that point: “No, that bra looks fine – no 4-boob action going on at all!” “No, honey, it’s not you, he’s an asshole who doesn’t know what he’s giving up!” “Sure, I’d love to help you move out of your third-floor apartment in the middle of July… just call me when you’re ready,” and the follow-up when they call, “Oh, man… I have a thing that day! Oh, that sucks! I was looking forward to cleaning your non-air-conditioned apartment that was previously occupied by an elderly cat lady. Too bad…”
So lying? Not a big issue for me. Until the school lie –
“Oh hey, Mom! How’s it going?”
“Not so good. I’m having a bad day today. How are you?”
“Kind of excited, actually. I called the school to see what I had to do to enroll in classes and finish my degree.”
I don’t know why I did it, or what in the world I was thinking. It was like an autonomic nervous response. Rather that fight or flee, I lied my ass off. How that made any sense whatsoever, I’ll never know, unless it was the cosmos using my own weakness for my mom, coupled with my tendency to try and make people happy when they’re sad, against me. Either that, or I’m just an idiot.
And man, was she excited. And I immediately felt like shit, and like… well, like I described above. The internal conversation sort of went like this:
Brain: What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you insane?
Me: Look how happy she is!
Brain: So you’re going to go back to school then? Have you thought about how you’re going to afford this?
Me: I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Brain: Well, dumbass, you’re there right about now. Go ahead and cross, genius.
Me: I’ll get tuition reimbursement from work. And maybe I’ll only take one class and if that sucks or is too expensive, I’ll stop after that.
Brain: And where were you planning on getting the money for this, exactly? You can’t even pay your rent on time!
Me: uh…
Brain: And what are you going to tell your husband? Didn’t the bank just call last week and threaten to repo your car because you’re two months behind on payments?
Me: Ummmmm…
Brain: When were you going to go? Were you planning on quitting your job? They don’t offer those kinds of classes in the adult ed program. What if they don’t accept you because you dropped out? Your grades were pretty shitty when you last went, remember? Kinda the reason why you dropped out to begin with, wasn’t it?
Me: All right! Shut up! I know! This was stupid! Maybe I’ll just maintain the illusion for a little while and then let it drop.
Brain: Oh, that’s brilliant. I thought you did this because you wanted to make her happy. Now you’re going to just lie, not do anything, and then probably act all offended when she brings it up again, aren’t you? That’s terrific. What kind of an asshole are you, anyway? Nice.
Ultimately, I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t maintain the lie, and hope that the whole thing would blow over. Besides, maybe I didn’t want to. And it turned out that the universe aligned just right for me to be able to complete my degree. It wasn’t all magic – there were times I almost couldn’t sign up for classes because I had a bill due. Or the time that I had to borrow a 30-year-old copy of The Riverside Chaucer from another university’s library until I could afford my own $150 copy. (I’m never selling that goddamn book, either. Evie and Fia will have to figure out who gets that gem when I die.) There were the semesters when I had to go to independent study from 8am to 10:30am, and then go to work in Customer Service from 11am to 8pm. Which sucked – a whole lot. (But strangely, not as much as going to work from 8am to 5pm, and then having class from 5:30 to 10:30pm.)
So I’m not going to come to my mom with this soul-searching. It would freak her right out, and we’ve finally come to a point where we have the kind of relationship that I rely on. She’s supportive, don’t get me wrong, but we’ve come to an understanding that there are some things I might have done at one time or another, that I don’t necessarily want to relive with her. And I feel like I might need to relive some of my memories, because I think some of them might have contributed to the choices I’ve made.
I guess this might be a midlife crisis, but I don’t feel like I’m in crisis. To me, crisis would imply some level of distress, a feeling that I’m losing my grip, that everything is spiraling out of control. And I really, truly don’t feel that way. I’m a pretty happy person. I love my husband, I adore my kids, I don’t even really hate my job. My house is messy and needing repair, but it’s my home and I love it, cracked ceilings and drafts and unfinished rooms and all.
That’s it! My house is a symbol of my life! I’m going to need to delve into this next!
But first, since I last started writing this, I've a new reason to freak right the fuck out. Turns out we owe an obscene amount to our daycare for the two lassies... and I have no. idea. where. that's. coming. from. Yeah. Now I'm in full-blown crisis mode. I cooked my lunch for tomorrow, but couldn't eat any of it because I ate pretzels dipped in sour cream (probably revolting, but I've been eating it since I was a kid) and then the kid's chewy fruit snacks. And then cheez doodles. Cause eating a pile of disgusting junk food is bound to make everything better, right? Hell. At least since I already feel like throwing up, I'll have something interesting to look at as it's rocketing out of me.
I also don’t think I can talk to my mom about it either. God bless her, but she instantly assumes that either it’s something to do with her, or it’s something that she doesn’t want to hear and she gets upset and worried. I think she has in her mind an idealized version of me that she wants me to be, and as long as I don’t shatter that illusion, we’re all good. Which is fine with me – I can be who I wish I were with her, and figure myself out another way.
This strategy has benefited me in the past. Years ago, I was adrift like this and decided I might have to re-enroll in college. I’d dropped out when I was a senior. Frightening, how easy it is really. You just stop going. Nobody comes looking for you; nobody asks you when you’re coming back. I was even working for the damn college at the time. The end of the year came, and I didn’t have enough credits to graduate, and I just didn’t re-enroll. I remember thinking at the time that there had to be some sort of fail-safe there. That, just like when you’re living at home, and you’re about to do something irresponsible, someone will come along and say, “Hey, what are you doing? This is a bad idea. Here’s why.” You might not listen – hell, I never listened when my parents told me not to do something. In fact most of the time, I ended up doing it anyway. It was my first lesson in real life. You can just stop doing something, and unless you’ve formed emotional ties with someone in an administrative function, or even a close relationship with a professor, chances are, nobody’s going to question it. That struck me as weird, I remember.
So years go by, and I start mulling around the idea of going back to school. Stupidly, I mention this to my mother, who has been after me to go back ever since I dropped out. The look on her face when I tell her that I’m thinking of returning just kills me – all that hope, relief that maybe I’ve come around. I’d told bullshit lies before, it was sort of commonplace. Nothing that hurt anyone up to that point: “No, that bra looks fine – no 4-boob action going on at all!” “No, honey, it’s not you, he’s an asshole who doesn’t know what he’s giving up!” “Sure, I’d love to help you move out of your third-floor apartment in the middle of July… just call me when you’re ready,” and the follow-up when they call, “Oh, man… I have a thing that day! Oh, that sucks! I was looking forward to cleaning your non-air-conditioned apartment that was previously occupied by an elderly cat lady. Too bad…”
So lying? Not a big issue for me. Until the school lie –
“Oh hey, Mom! How’s it going?”
“Not so good. I’m having a bad day today. How are you?”
“Kind of excited, actually. I called the school to see what I had to do to enroll in classes and finish my degree.”
I don’t know why I did it, or what in the world I was thinking. It was like an autonomic nervous response. Rather that fight or flee, I lied my ass off. How that made any sense whatsoever, I’ll never know, unless it was the cosmos using my own weakness for my mom, coupled with my tendency to try and make people happy when they’re sad, against me. Either that, or I’m just an idiot.
And man, was she excited. And I immediately felt like shit, and like… well, like I described above. The internal conversation sort of went like this:
Brain: What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you insane?
Me: Look how happy she is!
Brain: So you’re going to go back to school then? Have you thought about how you’re going to afford this?
Me: I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Brain: Well, dumbass, you’re there right about now. Go ahead and cross, genius.
Me: I’ll get tuition reimbursement from work. And maybe I’ll only take one class and if that sucks or is too expensive, I’ll stop after that.
Brain: And where were you planning on getting the money for this, exactly? You can’t even pay your rent on time!
Me: uh…
Brain: And what are you going to tell your husband? Didn’t the bank just call last week and threaten to repo your car because you’re two months behind on payments?
Me: Ummmmm…
Brain: When were you going to go? Were you planning on quitting your job? They don’t offer those kinds of classes in the adult ed program. What if they don’t accept you because you dropped out? Your grades were pretty shitty when you last went, remember? Kinda the reason why you dropped out to begin with, wasn’t it?
Me: All right! Shut up! I know! This was stupid! Maybe I’ll just maintain the illusion for a little while and then let it drop.
Brain: Oh, that’s brilliant. I thought you did this because you wanted to make her happy. Now you’re going to just lie, not do anything, and then probably act all offended when she brings it up again, aren’t you? That’s terrific. What kind of an asshole are you, anyway? Nice.
Ultimately, I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t maintain the lie, and hope that the whole thing would blow over. Besides, maybe I didn’t want to. And it turned out that the universe aligned just right for me to be able to complete my degree. It wasn’t all magic – there were times I almost couldn’t sign up for classes because I had a bill due. Or the time that I had to borrow a 30-year-old copy of The Riverside Chaucer from another university’s library until I could afford my own $150 copy. (I’m never selling that goddamn book, either. Evie and Fia will have to figure out who gets that gem when I die.) There were the semesters when I had to go to independent study from 8am to 10:30am, and then go to work in Customer Service from 11am to 8pm. Which sucked – a whole lot. (But strangely, not as much as going to work from 8am to 5pm, and then having class from 5:30 to 10:30pm.)
So I’m not going to come to my mom with this soul-searching. It would freak her right out, and we’ve finally come to a point where we have the kind of relationship that I rely on. She’s supportive, don’t get me wrong, but we’ve come to an understanding that there are some things I might have done at one time or another, that I don’t necessarily want to relive with her. And I feel like I might need to relive some of my memories, because I think some of them might have contributed to the choices I’ve made.
I guess this might be a midlife crisis, but I don’t feel like I’m in crisis. To me, crisis would imply some level of distress, a feeling that I’m losing my grip, that everything is spiraling out of control. And I really, truly don’t feel that way. I’m a pretty happy person. I love my husband, I adore my kids, I don’t even really hate my job. My house is messy and needing repair, but it’s my home and I love it, cracked ceilings and drafts and unfinished rooms and all.
That’s it! My house is a symbol of my life! I’m going to need to delve into this next!
But first, since I last started writing this, I've a new reason to freak right the fuck out. Turns out we owe an obscene amount to our daycare for the two lassies... and I have no. idea. where. that's. coming. from. Yeah. Now I'm in full-blown crisis mode. I cooked my lunch for tomorrow, but couldn't eat any of it because I ate pretzels dipped in sour cream (probably revolting, but I've been eating it since I was a kid) and then the kid's chewy fruit snacks. And then cheez doodles. Cause eating a pile of disgusting junk food is bound to make everything better, right? Hell. At least since I already feel like throwing up, I'll have something interesting to look at as it's rocketing out of me.
Confessions of a Lazy Blogger
Still not very good at this. But perhaps it could just be said that I only come to this thing when I have something in my head I need to work out.
That sounds heavy. And really, nothing's heavy right now. Just a bunch of random thoughts, mostly. I need to sit and examine some things about myself, and I'm still working out how to express them. I feel like I have opinions about things but don't know whether I can justify them yet. I guess this is soul-searching time, huh? Not that there's anything terribly dramatic going on - I just feel like ever since Fi was born, I need to get my house in order. My whole house - not just my dwelling, but myself. I need to get my head straight, and my heart, and find out what the frick I actually want to make of my life. 'Cause all this drifting is cool and all, but I'm 35, for chrissakes. I don't think I'm OK crossing bridges when I get to them anymore.
That sounds heavy. And really, nothing's heavy right now. Just a bunch of random thoughts, mostly. I need to sit and examine some things about myself, and I'm still working out how to express them. I feel like I have opinions about things but don't know whether I can justify them yet. I guess this is soul-searching time, huh? Not that there's anything terribly dramatic going on - I just feel like ever since Fi was born, I need to get my house in order. My whole house - not just my dwelling, but myself. I need to get my head straight, and my heart, and find out what the frick I actually want to make of my life. 'Cause all this drifting is cool and all, but I'm 35, for chrissakes. I don't think I'm OK crossing bridges when I get to them anymore.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
My NEW New Year's Resolution
I think I need to get my brains back.
I know I need to get my brains back.
I need to spend more time connecting my mind to the world of the real, and marveling in all there is to see and do in it.
I need to take my daughters with me on this journey.
Return the chores and responsibilities of the everyday world to their proper place - an undercurrent of reality that defines only the physical activity of the day, not the mental activity. No longer preoccupy myself solely with the domestic arts that I find so soothing and enjoyable, but give my mind a workout as strenuous as might be required of someone grossly out of shape. For my mind is out of shape. It's become fat with Food Network and Bravo and no reading and no writing. When I'm too tired to remember to go to the library other than for the book sale. My daughter has only browsed in the library once in her young life, and that is tragic. Yes, I know she can't read yet, but how will she ever get an appreciation for the wonderfulness of the library, with its infinite shelves of ideas, adventures, knowledge- her mind is hungry for it, and I've been feeding her fucking Caillou.
When I was a kid I was brainy, and people made fun of me for it. Rather than being strong enough to embrace my intellect, I dumbed myself down so that people wouldn't tease me about reading the dictionary for fun. I intentionally did poorly, skived off doing my homework or studying, because the smart kids weren't cool. Well, hell of a lot of good it did me- I still wasn't cool, and by the time I started to try to give a damn, I'd already lost a few good years of building good skills. I blamed it partially on a school system that didn't keep a good eye on me, make me do my homework, catch me in the lies I told my teachers and parents to keep out of trouble, but in all honestly if I'd just said to myself, "I don't care what people think, I AM smart, and I'm gonna work hard," perhaps it wouldn't have taken me 12 years to finally complete college and still end up working as a wage slave in a cubicle farm.
I know it's likely that I will tell this to my girls till I'm blue in the face and they'll still do whatever they damn well please anyway, but maybe, just maybe if I lead by example, they'll enjoy the intellectual pursuits in life, and fuck themselves up some other way.
I know I need to get my brains back.
I need to spend more time connecting my mind to the world of the real, and marveling in all there is to see and do in it.
I need to take my daughters with me on this journey.
Return the chores and responsibilities of the everyday world to their proper place - an undercurrent of reality that defines only the physical activity of the day, not the mental activity. No longer preoccupy myself solely with the domestic arts that I find so soothing and enjoyable, but give my mind a workout as strenuous as might be required of someone grossly out of shape. For my mind is out of shape. It's become fat with Food Network and Bravo and no reading and no writing. When I'm too tired to remember to go to the library other than for the book sale. My daughter has only browsed in the library once in her young life, and that is tragic. Yes, I know she can't read yet, but how will she ever get an appreciation for the wonderfulness of the library, with its infinite shelves of ideas, adventures, knowledge- her mind is hungry for it, and I've been feeding her fucking Caillou.
When I was a kid I was brainy, and people made fun of me for it. Rather than being strong enough to embrace my intellect, I dumbed myself down so that people wouldn't tease me about reading the dictionary for fun. I intentionally did poorly, skived off doing my homework or studying, because the smart kids weren't cool. Well, hell of a lot of good it did me- I still wasn't cool, and by the time I started to try to give a damn, I'd already lost a few good years of building good skills. I blamed it partially on a school system that didn't keep a good eye on me, make me do my homework, catch me in the lies I told my teachers and parents to keep out of trouble, but in all honestly if I'd just said to myself, "I don't care what people think, I AM smart, and I'm gonna work hard," perhaps it wouldn't have taken me 12 years to finally complete college and still end up working as a wage slave in a cubicle farm.
I know it's likely that I will tell this to my girls till I'm blue in the face and they'll still do whatever they damn well please anyway, but maybe, just maybe if I lead by example, they'll enjoy the intellectual pursuits in life, and fuck themselves up some other way.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Procrastination! Yeah!!
Heh. Posting to this blog is my new procrastination method. I could say I'm waiting for the washer to stop so I can go do the dishes so I can then make this soup recipe that I think will closely approximate the Pasta Fagioli they used to serve at Sal's (they make it differently now, and I miss it terribly). But that will only be true if I actually peel my butt off the couch to go do that. And since I've been messing around now for the entire time Evie's been napping, that seems slightly unlikely at this point.
But wait. I have already done two loads of wash today, played Clipo with Evie and let her prepare me wooden food, gave her lunch, nursed Sofia three times (hungry baby!), and talked to the MIL twice (once so she could ask if she could buy fleece-lined Crocs for Evie, and a second time to tell me she did buy them, plus four packs of those goofy thingies you can jam into the croc-holes on the shoes). So it isn't an entirely wasted day.
I think I've been going about this whole blog thing all wrong. Every time I'd sit down to write, I'd treat it like an essay for college - plan, come up with a pithy, interesting topic, then edit-edit-edit. In my overinflated sense of self-importance regarding internet meanderings, I felt like I needed to provide An Interesting, Informative Topic every single time. Which led to completion anxiety and a general feeling that this was not fun, which for me always leads to something being abandoned. But why bother? Mine is just another voice adding to the cacophony, and people will either read this (most likely just people who know me who for some reason aren't tired of hearing me talk about myself and my life), or they won't, and it will just be a neat little space for me to keep my writing muscles flexed. So I'm going to take the same attitude with this blog that Matt and I did about Christmas- Fuck it, it's Christmas. I'm not going to get hung up on the minutiae of how it should be, I'm just going to buckle my seatbelt and go on the ride. It won't ever be how I envision it, no matter how much I pretzel myself into trying to make it so. I can either accept this, and enjoy the ride, or I can completely reject it and try to bend circumstances to my will to make the most perfectest, specialest, beautiful-snowflakiest blog that has internashunal reedership (lolcat spelling required here) and a growing fanbase that leads to me getting book deals and cash money and stalkers.
I'm making carpets for my kitchen using this pattern here. I have started them three times, and only on the third time have I made progress. I'm still new to crochet, and my skills aren't as sharp as my knitting skills, so on my first try, I tried to use the pattern as a guideline and then do my own thing. I normally do this with simple knitting patterns (anything where I am either totally comfortable with making it, like socks, or something where gauge isn't critical, like scarves or afghans), so I figured hey, why not just do that with crochet? Turns out I don't know enough about crochet to do that yet. When the pattern tells me to use two strands of yarn doubled and a size N hook, I should just do that and stop getting cute and using 1 strand and size H hook. Theoretically that should work, but it was too loopy and not at all what it should have looked like. Stupidly, I then did it again, but this time added stripes. I also need to practice stripes. Try #2 was now loopy with weird jogs where the stripes began and ended. Yesterday, on Lazy New Year's Day, I tried it one more time but, wonder of wonders, actually followed the instructions as the designer wrote them. And OMG, WTF, it looks just right? Go figure. But then I had to start it again because after I got the pattern going, I snuggled up for a while with Evie to get her to fall asleep for nap, and got the yarn wrapped around my foot and yanked half of the rug out when I got up to put Evie in her room. Gah.
If I get my housework done, though, I might be able to just sit tonight after the kids go to bed and work on these rugs (I want a round one for each doorway to the kitchen, plus semicircles for the spot in front of the sink and the stove) instead of cleaning up or something lame like that... Ooh, that sounds good. Time to go then. So I didn't end up fibbing- the washer is done now. I can do the dishes, throw another load of clothes in, and go make pasta fagioli with white beans and ditalini. Yeah boy!
But wait. I have already done two loads of wash today, played Clipo with Evie and let her prepare me wooden food, gave her lunch, nursed Sofia three times (hungry baby!), and talked to the MIL twice (once so she could ask if she could buy fleece-lined Crocs for Evie, and a second time to tell me she did buy them, plus four packs of those goofy thingies you can jam into the croc-holes on the shoes). So it isn't an entirely wasted day.
I think I've been going about this whole blog thing all wrong. Every time I'd sit down to write, I'd treat it like an essay for college - plan, come up with a pithy, interesting topic, then edit-edit-edit. In my overinflated sense of self-importance regarding internet meanderings, I felt like I needed to provide An Interesting, Informative Topic every single time. Which led to completion anxiety and a general feeling that this was not fun, which for me always leads to something being abandoned. But why bother? Mine is just another voice adding to the cacophony, and people will either read this (most likely just people who know me who for some reason aren't tired of hearing me talk about myself and my life), or they won't, and it will just be a neat little space for me to keep my writing muscles flexed. So I'm going to take the same attitude with this blog that Matt and I did about Christmas- Fuck it, it's Christmas. I'm not going to get hung up on the minutiae of how it should be, I'm just going to buckle my seatbelt and go on the ride. It won't ever be how I envision it, no matter how much I pretzel myself into trying to make it so. I can either accept this, and enjoy the ride, or I can completely reject it and try to bend circumstances to my will to make the most perfectest, specialest, beautiful-snowflakiest blog that has internashunal reedership (lolcat spelling required here) and a growing fanbase that leads to me getting book deals and cash money and stalkers.
I'm making carpets for my kitchen using this pattern here. I have started them three times, and only on the third time have I made progress. I'm still new to crochet, and my skills aren't as sharp as my knitting skills, so on my first try, I tried to use the pattern as a guideline and then do my own thing. I normally do this with simple knitting patterns (anything where I am either totally comfortable with making it, like socks, or something where gauge isn't critical, like scarves or afghans), so I figured hey, why not just do that with crochet? Turns out I don't know enough about crochet to do that yet. When the pattern tells me to use two strands of yarn doubled and a size N hook, I should just do that and stop getting cute and using 1 strand and size H hook. Theoretically that should work, but it was too loopy and not at all what it should have looked like. Stupidly, I then did it again, but this time added stripes. I also need to practice stripes. Try #2 was now loopy with weird jogs where the stripes began and ended. Yesterday, on Lazy New Year's Day, I tried it one more time but, wonder of wonders, actually followed the instructions as the designer wrote them. And OMG, WTF, it looks just right? Go figure. But then I had to start it again because after I got the pattern going, I snuggled up for a while with Evie to get her to fall asleep for nap, and got the yarn wrapped around my foot and yanked half of the rug out when I got up to put Evie in her room. Gah.
If I get my housework done, though, I might be able to just sit tonight after the kids go to bed and work on these rugs (I want a round one for each doorway to the kitchen, plus semicircles for the spot in front of the sink and the stove) instead of cleaning up or something lame like that... Ooh, that sounds good. Time to go then. So I didn't end up fibbing- the washer is done now. I can do the dishes, throw another load of clothes in, and go make pasta fagioli with white beans and ditalini. Yeah boy!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
All right,
so clearly I suck at this blog thing. It's not that I don't have anything to say, I just don't have a damn minute left to do this. I'm still going to keep pushing this boulder up the hill, though, 'cause maybe one day I'll get the hang of it or something. I continue to be an optimistic, overambitious moron. After all, I had an entire daughter in the time between now and the last time I blogged. A WHOLE ENTIRE CHILD. Named Sofia. Who is beautiful, and chubby, and healthy, and the best early Christmas present I could ever have gotten. Maybe I'll get into that in another post- the whole delivery experience, which was rather insane- or maybe not. Let's just say I spent a lot of time in the hospital bawling, and focus on the good, positive vibes for now.
It's New Year's Eve. I'm feeling hopeful and blessed. I'm also putting off doing housework right now 'cause I just nursed Fia again and don't feel like getting up off the couch yet. I kinda want a snack but don't know what I'm hungry for yet, so I'll get up when I figure that out.
I'm so lucky. Evie doesn't resent Sofia at all. I thought she might because, well, Evie is WAY into me. And it's been the Evie Show now for the last 2 1/2 years, and she is 2 1/2, which is kind of an "all-about-me" age, so I'm yet again impressed with my kid. They really do surprise you, don't they. If anything, I'm most worried about Evie loving Sofia to death. It's like that Looney Tunes cartoon with the giant abominable snowman who finds Marvin the Martian and decides to "hug him, and squeeze him, and love him and name him George." (I know I'm getting that quote wrong, but you get the idea.) Evie just loves her sister. She wants to pick her up, feed her, change her, carry her around, hug her, pat her, burp her, everything. Unfortunately, she's 2 1/2 and has no concept of the delicate structure of a 6-week-old baby, so she gets very frustrated with me when I don't allow her to do any of these things. But she is an amazing helper, and she loves to give kisses and is very proud of her sister when I bring her to daycare to pick up Evie at the end of the day.
We kept Evie in daycare for three days a week while I was out on leave. I go back on Monday. Kinda dreading it, kinda not, actually. It's not that I want to go back, or that I even feel that I'm really missed (other than by the woman who's filling in for me while I'm out), but I don't have the choice not to work. Being out for 6 weeks isn't nearly as great as being out for 12 weeks, for sure. But it actually might be easier to deal with the return not having been out as long. Being out for 3 whole months, when I went back, I cried. I cried a lot. I hated it, and I hated the financial and life situation that made it impossible for me to stay home with Evie full time. So I really hated my husbeast, especially since he was on tour at the time, having an awesome rockstar adventure while I went to work in the cubicle farm all day and then picked up my daughter from daycare and went home alone to do the mommy thing.
But you know what? In the end, it was OK. I'd still love to stay home with the girls and do the mommy thing, but I think I'd have to do it part-time, rather than full-time. First of all, we'll never be able to afford for me to stay home full time. Even when Matt's job is going great, there are still rough patches where there just aren't any shows. He really does take any job he can, and it's becoming increasingly rare for him to have enough downtime to be able to even collect unemployment. By the time he's been out long enough to file, he's able to pick up a gig. Still, given even that, it doesn't bring in enough to support a family of 4 as the solitary income. No matter how frugal we could be.
Then there's the benefit of daycare. I had such reservations about sending Evie to daycare before she was born, and maybe I just lucked out because the place that she goes to has been wonderful for her. She's learned so much, and she trusts the women who work there, and is mostly OK with me leaving her there every morning. We have our separation anxiety mornings, but hell- sometimes I don't wanna leave her just as much as she doesn't wanna leave me. You just have a day like that sometimes, where you just want to stay home in your jammie pants and watch TV and snuggle on the couch. But she has little friends she talks about, and they sing songs and learn colors and table manners and all those little things that you learn every day that I don't know if I'd have been able to teach her quite as well as they have. It's a huge portion of my paycheck, though, so with two little ones going full-time starting Monday, I don't know how long we'll be able to afford it. Some big decisions are going to have to be made this year - we probably only have about 6 months before this really becomes a financial burden.
But then, there's just me. I don't know if my brain would survive not doing something non-child-related. I love my daughters, and every day that I've been home has been a gift. But even when we're snuggled on the couch, Fia nursing contentedly on one side and Evie cuddled into the crook of my arm on the other, my brain needs stimulation. Often I have the laptop open to read the news, or Ravelry, or people's blogs, or just something to entertain me besides the Goodnight Show on Sprout. I need the challenge of learning, I need problem-solving stimulation. I do puzzles to fall asleep, or math problems in my head, or alphabetical lists by subject (cities in PA from A to Z, or world capitals, or rock bands of the 90's...) The only thing I've missed in the last 6 weeks of getting my mommy-of-two legs is mental exercise. I'm getting physical exercise (lifting two kids constantly, chasing a maniacal toddler, etc), emotional exercise (not screaming at Evie for doing 2-year-old things is taking a lot of fortitude, or sleeping only 3 hours at a time, or not crying when Fia needs to eat yet again, even though she's nursed so often in the past 3 days that my nipples feel like they're going to fall off), but my brain feels like it's going into atrophy. The credit-based reimbursement shenanigans that await me upon my return to work will certainly provide that challenge. If I was home full-time, I would probably need to teach myself Mandarin or welding or string theory or something.
So I have mixed feelings. Mostly I wish I could have the life that would allow me to stay home, yet still do something mentally nutritious- design knitwear, or learn glassblowing, or teach yoga or something. But right now, I don't see me having time to read a novel, let alone learn a new career path. So it's back to the cube farm for me, for now. For my girls' sake, for my family's sake. For the health insurance, for a steady paycheck. I'm lucky to have a job- lots of people don't. I have a nice house, a healthy family, and all my loved ones are close and healthy. So that's my prayer for this year- status quo. That things can only improve, and that none of me and mine have any heartbreak, setbacks, or letdowns in 2010. Onward and upward.
It's New Year's Eve. I'm feeling hopeful and blessed. I'm also putting off doing housework right now 'cause I just nursed Fia again and don't feel like getting up off the couch yet. I kinda want a snack but don't know what I'm hungry for yet, so I'll get up when I figure that out.
I'm so lucky. Evie doesn't resent Sofia at all. I thought she might because, well, Evie is WAY into me. And it's been the Evie Show now for the last 2 1/2 years, and she is 2 1/2, which is kind of an "all-about-me" age, so I'm yet again impressed with my kid. They really do surprise you, don't they. If anything, I'm most worried about Evie loving Sofia to death. It's like that Looney Tunes cartoon with the giant abominable snowman who finds Marvin the Martian and decides to "hug him, and squeeze him, and love him and name him George." (I know I'm getting that quote wrong, but you get the idea.) Evie just loves her sister. She wants to pick her up, feed her, change her, carry her around, hug her, pat her, burp her, everything. Unfortunately, she's 2 1/2 and has no concept of the delicate structure of a 6-week-old baby, so she gets very frustrated with me when I don't allow her to do any of these things. But she is an amazing helper, and she loves to give kisses and is very proud of her sister when I bring her to daycare to pick up Evie at the end of the day.
We kept Evie in daycare for three days a week while I was out on leave. I go back on Monday. Kinda dreading it, kinda not, actually. It's not that I want to go back, or that I even feel that I'm really missed (other than by the woman who's filling in for me while I'm out), but I don't have the choice not to work. Being out for 6 weeks isn't nearly as great as being out for 12 weeks, for sure. But it actually might be easier to deal with the return not having been out as long. Being out for 3 whole months, when I went back, I cried. I cried a lot. I hated it, and I hated the financial and life situation that made it impossible for me to stay home with Evie full time. So I really hated my husbeast, especially since he was on tour at the time, having an awesome rockstar adventure while I went to work in the cubicle farm all day and then picked up my daughter from daycare and went home alone to do the mommy thing.
But you know what? In the end, it was OK. I'd still love to stay home with the girls and do the mommy thing, but I think I'd have to do it part-time, rather than full-time. First of all, we'll never be able to afford for me to stay home full time. Even when Matt's job is going great, there are still rough patches where there just aren't any shows. He really does take any job he can, and it's becoming increasingly rare for him to have enough downtime to be able to even collect unemployment. By the time he's been out long enough to file, he's able to pick up a gig. Still, given even that, it doesn't bring in enough to support a family of 4 as the solitary income. No matter how frugal we could be.
Then there's the benefit of daycare. I had such reservations about sending Evie to daycare before she was born, and maybe I just lucked out because the place that she goes to has been wonderful for her. She's learned so much, and she trusts the women who work there, and is mostly OK with me leaving her there every morning. We have our separation anxiety mornings, but hell- sometimes I don't wanna leave her just as much as she doesn't wanna leave me. You just have a day like that sometimes, where you just want to stay home in your jammie pants and watch TV and snuggle on the couch. But she has little friends she talks about, and they sing songs and learn colors and table manners and all those little things that you learn every day that I don't know if I'd have been able to teach her quite as well as they have. It's a huge portion of my paycheck, though, so with two little ones going full-time starting Monday, I don't know how long we'll be able to afford it. Some big decisions are going to have to be made this year - we probably only have about 6 months before this really becomes a financial burden.
But then, there's just me. I don't know if my brain would survive not doing something non-child-related. I love my daughters, and every day that I've been home has been a gift. But even when we're snuggled on the couch, Fia nursing contentedly on one side and Evie cuddled into the crook of my arm on the other, my brain needs stimulation. Often I have the laptop open to read the news, or Ravelry, or people's blogs, or just something to entertain me besides the Goodnight Show on Sprout. I need the challenge of learning, I need problem-solving stimulation. I do puzzles to fall asleep, or math problems in my head, or alphabetical lists by subject (cities in PA from A to Z, or world capitals, or rock bands of the 90's...) The only thing I've missed in the last 6 weeks of getting my mommy-of-two legs is mental exercise. I'm getting physical exercise (lifting two kids constantly, chasing a maniacal toddler, etc), emotional exercise (not screaming at Evie for doing 2-year-old things is taking a lot of fortitude, or sleeping only 3 hours at a time, or not crying when Fia needs to eat yet again, even though she's nursed so often in the past 3 days that my nipples feel like they're going to fall off), but my brain feels like it's going into atrophy. The credit-based reimbursement shenanigans that await me upon my return to work will certainly provide that challenge. If I was home full-time, I would probably need to teach myself Mandarin or welding or string theory or something.
So I have mixed feelings. Mostly I wish I could have the life that would allow me to stay home, yet still do something mentally nutritious- design knitwear, or learn glassblowing, or teach yoga or something. But right now, I don't see me having time to read a novel, let alone learn a new career path. So it's back to the cube farm for me, for now. For my girls' sake, for my family's sake. For the health insurance, for a steady paycheck. I'm lucky to have a job- lots of people don't. I have a nice house, a healthy family, and all my loved ones are close and healthy. So that's my prayer for this year- status quo. That things can only improve, and that none of me and mine have any heartbreak, setbacks, or letdowns in 2010. Onward and upward.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Renewal
OK, gonna try again. It's getting to be summer here, and I'm feeling a new surge of ambition and productivity. I think in the winter I get the lazies, and just really want to hunker down in my house and wait out the cold. Now that it's getting warmer and the days are longer, I find myself getting excited about new projects, trying new things, just getting out there and doing stuff.
I've been investigating food storage- canning, freezing, once-a-month cooking. I think part of it is this new economical turn that we've been taking as a society- reducing the costs of everyday living while still trying to live well. The husbeast and I have been doing this for years, but it's only recently that we find ourselves with adequate space in our house to do it more efficiently. Tip? Side-by-side freezer/fridges are useless for this venture. They hold nothing. They look cool as hell, but they are USELESS. Currently we save what we can in our skinny-ass freezer, but every time you open the door, things come cascading out on you in a frozen food avalanche. I'd like to start buying what's on sale, storing it and then cooking from it when money gets tight (and it will, 'cause it always does), but we've only been able to do so much with our limited capacity. I have been saving up for a freezer chest so I can start really storing things.
So where would this freezer go? Hopefully in my basement where the washer and dryer currently reside. We've been remodeling our mudroom to be an actually functioning room and not just a lean-to filled with insulation and random crap. One side will be a laundry area and the other? ANOTHER BATHROOM!!! HUZZAH!!! We seriously require another bathroom now that the husbeast has been getting early-morning gigs. Also, we have a potty-trainer now (another HUZZAH! for that) and hauling ass up the stairs to get her to the loo before we have an accident is going to just get harder and harder. All the structural work is done, thanks to my husband, father-in-law, and rockstar good friend who was a finish carpenter for years before she settled down in the insurance world. This past fall, they knocked down the existing structure (kept the roof on it, which was in pretty good shape), rebuilt the foundation (part of it was being held up by a rusty metal pitchfork, no lie) and framed and walled it all in. Husbeast ran the electrical, and now we're just waiting for the stars (or, in our case, the money and time) to line up so we can get a plumber in there to run the pipes. Hopefully that happens soon...
...because I'm pregnant again. Not an entirely horrifying turn of events, in fact, we're now quite happy about it. I did freak right out when we discovered this, mostly because of the money. We're living pretty close to the edge now as it is, and weren't really planning on having another kid until we were in a more financially stable position. But hey, who doesn't say that about nearly every big step, right? I said it before we bought our house. I said it again before we started trying to have Boogie. I was in the middle of saying it when we were contemplating buying a 4-door car. And I'm saying it now, even though I'm not only OK with having another child, but actually getting pretty excited about the fun part of pregnancy starting soon. I'm only at the 14-week mark, so only a little preggo belly and hip discomfort so far, none of the really cool moving around and seeing what gender it is yet. Financially, it is going to be a challenge. Especially right now, the way things are going with the economy (or should I say, "THE ECONOMY," as it's often referred to in "THE MEDIA" as some sort of independently sentient being that demands the attention of all). But it can't be any worse than when the husbeast came back from tour and had to re-establish himself with this area's entertainment companies in order to start getting gigs again, or when we first bought the house and had to take on a tenant to help make ends meet. It's probably why I'm all about yard sales, and home gardening, canning, once-a-month cooking and deep-freezing items bought in bulk right now. Everybody's kinda freaking out right now, right? We're no different, unless we let it get us down and keep us from surviving. Now husbeast and I have not one, but two little people depending on us. But if you hear me start talking about building a bunker in the basement to protect us from the mayhem of an eventual financial collapse, please feel free to sit me down and re-introduce me to reality.
It ain't all bad, it's actually pretty great. That last paragraph sounded bleak as hell, and really, I don't feel that way. It's just that whenever I find myself in a new obsession, I like to try and figure out what spurred it. When I was a kid, my mom did lots of canning and freezing-- tomatoes, strawberry preserves (the most awesome ones ever), sweet corn. I still have flashbacks of sweating in our kitchen, slicing corn off the cob to put in freezer bags, stealing some of the blocks of corn kernels that got stuck together, which tasted so sweet and good because they were only just a little bit cooked (blanched, really) and still had a bit of the starchiness in them. One year she tried pickles, both the dill kind and bread and butter pickles. I think she even did beets once. We had a pantry in the basement filled with all these goodies, and even to my trivial childlike mind, I used to think it was pretty cool to have this stuff in the middle of a dreary Maryland February when nothing was fresh. I want to do that. I want to have our sour cherries in December when the tree's been bare for months already. I want to start making our tomato sauce with tomatoes I peeled and canned in the fall. They have a warmth to them that even a few months in a canning jar can't quite take away. When Boogie says, "pi-kul, mommy!" I want it to be one of the pickles we pickled together on a warm early fall day (or maybe even early summer, if I can gather up enough pickle jars). I want to be the one who gives away jars of preserves and bottles of homemade hooch for Christmas (we did that one year, made cherry liqueur from the cherries on our cherry tree).
Maybe it's 'cause I'm crafty. Maybe it's 'cause that's how I was raised. Maybe I'm just insane and overly ambitious to think that ANY of this is going to happen given my current to-do-list overload. Who cares? I want to do it. Let's see if I can.
I've been investigating food storage- canning, freezing, once-a-month cooking. I think part of it is this new economical turn that we've been taking as a society- reducing the costs of everyday living while still trying to live well. The husbeast and I have been doing this for years, but it's only recently that we find ourselves with adequate space in our house to do it more efficiently. Tip? Side-by-side freezer/fridges are useless for this venture. They hold nothing. They look cool as hell, but they are USELESS. Currently we save what we can in our skinny-ass freezer, but every time you open the door, things come cascading out on you in a frozen food avalanche. I'd like to start buying what's on sale, storing it and then cooking from it when money gets tight (and it will, 'cause it always does), but we've only been able to do so much with our limited capacity. I have been saving up for a freezer chest so I can start really storing things.
So where would this freezer go? Hopefully in my basement where the washer and dryer currently reside. We've been remodeling our mudroom to be an actually functioning room and not just a lean-to filled with insulation and random crap. One side will be a laundry area and the other? ANOTHER BATHROOM!!! HUZZAH!!! We seriously require another bathroom now that the husbeast has been getting early-morning gigs. Also, we have a potty-trainer now (another HUZZAH! for that) and hauling ass up the stairs to get her to the loo before we have an accident is going to just get harder and harder. All the structural work is done, thanks to my husband, father-in-law, and rockstar good friend who was a finish carpenter for years before she settled down in the insurance world. This past fall, they knocked down the existing structure (kept the roof on it, which was in pretty good shape), rebuilt the foundation (part of it was being held up by a rusty metal pitchfork, no lie) and framed and walled it all in. Husbeast ran the electrical, and now we're just waiting for the stars (or, in our case, the money and time) to line up so we can get a plumber in there to run the pipes. Hopefully that happens soon...
...because I'm pregnant again. Not an entirely horrifying turn of events, in fact, we're now quite happy about it. I did freak right out when we discovered this, mostly because of the money. We're living pretty close to the edge now as it is, and weren't really planning on having another kid until we were in a more financially stable position. But hey, who doesn't say that about nearly every big step, right? I said it before we bought our house. I said it again before we started trying to have Boogie. I was in the middle of saying it when we were contemplating buying a 4-door car. And I'm saying it now, even though I'm not only OK with having another child, but actually getting pretty excited about the fun part of pregnancy starting soon. I'm only at the 14-week mark, so only a little preggo belly and hip discomfort so far, none of the really cool moving around and seeing what gender it is yet. Financially, it is going to be a challenge. Especially right now, the way things are going with the economy (or should I say, "THE ECONOMY," as it's often referred to in "THE MEDIA" as some sort of independently sentient being that demands the attention of all). But it can't be any worse than when the husbeast came back from tour and had to re-establish himself with this area's entertainment companies in order to start getting gigs again, or when we first bought the house and had to take on a tenant to help make ends meet. It's probably why I'm all about yard sales, and home gardening, canning, once-a-month cooking and deep-freezing items bought in bulk right now. Everybody's kinda freaking out right now, right? We're no different, unless we let it get us down and keep us from surviving. Now husbeast and I have not one, but two little people depending on us. But if you hear me start talking about building a bunker in the basement to protect us from the mayhem of an eventual financial collapse, please feel free to sit me down and re-introduce me to reality.
It ain't all bad, it's actually pretty great. That last paragraph sounded bleak as hell, and really, I don't feel that way. It's just that whenever I find myself in a new obsession, I like to try and figure out what spurred it. When I was a kid, my mom did lots of canning and freezing-- tomatoes, strawberry preserves (the most awesome ones ever), sweet corn. I still have flashbacks of sweating in our kitchen, slicing corn off the cob to put in freezer bags, stealing some of the blocks of corn kernels that got stuck together, which tasted so sweet and good because they were only just a little bit cooked (blanched, really) and still had a bit of the starchiness in them. One year she tried pickles, both the dill kind and bread and butter pickles. I think she even did beets once. We had a pantry in the basement filled with all these goodies, and even to my trivial childlike mind, I used to think it was pretty cool to have this stuff in the middle of a dreary Maryland February when nothing was fresh. I want to do that. I want to have our sour cherries in December when the tree's been bare for months already. I want to start making our tomato sauce with tomatoes I peeled and canned in the fall. They have a warmth to them that even a few months in a canning jar can't quite take away. When Boogie says, "pi-kul, mommy!" I want it to be one of the pickles we pickled together on a warm early fall day (or maybe even early summer, if I can gather up enough pickle jars). I want to be the one who gives away jars of preserves and bottles of homemade hooch for Christmas (we did that one year, made cherry liqueur from the cherries on our cherry tree).
Maybe it's 'cause I'm crafty. Maybe it's 'cause that's how I was raised. Maybe I'm just insane and overly ambitious to think that ANY of this is going to happen given my current to-do-list overload. Who cares? I want to do it. Let's see if I can.
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