Late with the weekly post

Because I'm late with everything. Sigh.
Still hanging in over here. DH has had all the testing that his PCP (an internist who specializes in diabetes) knows to do, so he's been referred to three separate specialists in an attempt to sort out what various and sundry maladies he has. The internist currently suspects an autoimmune disease, and possibly other lung yuck, but as we just got the referrals, we have no news. My dad had his knee replaced yesterday (FINALLY) after much drama and hassle. Mostly emotionally. His girlfriend/ex-wife (yeah, it's weird) is having a few mental issues that we suspect are stemming from medical stuff, so combine the fact that she was flipping out about the recovery period and Dad was flipping out about the procedure itself, it's a wonder it ever got done. The surgeon said he had ZERO cartilage left and scolded Dad for letting it go that long. If the recovery goes as well as they predict, we're all hoping he'll have the other knee done and get back to his hiking regimen. Maybe he'll even feel good enough to hike the Grand Canyon again when his two little grandsons are old enough that I trust they won't fling themselves off the trail into the abyss. o.0
Anyway, I am hanging in. Trying to take Bug to the park with relative frequency to make up for the fact that I am considerably less fun than a room full of friends at the daycare. He seems okay with things, and while Squeak is still not mobile I am okay to take him and let him run. I've even been chasing him a bit, though last night he hauled tuckus so fast on his little bike that I RAN most of the way home, and ended up needing advil and ice packs on my knees. (Sad little knees have had a hard hard life, even before I slapped a hundred extra pounds on them. They used to dislocate with great frequency and now are mostly held together with scar tissue.) If he gets any faster I'm going to have to get my old hateful bike down and tune it up.
Things like this have been making my days a little easier:


From scratch sticky buns using challah dough, from 5-Minute Breads Changed My Life, or whatever it is.

The other day I made a coconut cream pie from scratch, too, but I didn't get a picture. I've been going a little insane with the dairy, too. I have all the stuff to make my own yogurt, and have been considering making butter and cheese. Seriously, I googled local dairy farms. (Turns out there are not so many in Tucson.) I wondered who I knew that might have a cow. I think this staying at home thing might be getting to my head.

In knitting knews, I'm still working on Mary Jane. I also (finally) started May's socks, ya know, just in time for June. I'll pull June's socks on June 1, but we're leaving on June 4 to go see youngest stepdaughter graduate from high school (holy shit, where did the time go?) and I'm only taking Mary Jane and the May socks. Here's a question I have, though. If most people's feet are (generally) shaped like



why do we make sock toes like



?



The fit, it seems not so good. I'm trying slightly more organically shaped toes on these socks. I have no picture and am too lazy to get one, mostly because Squeak is squawking which means I have to finish this post and go feed him. With the organic baby food I make myself. Somebody, seriously, stop me.

Christmas shopping?

Is done.

Courtesy of Lynn, no matter how much she denies it.

Another week.

People, it is RAINING in Tucson. Let me repeat, IT IS RAINING IN TUCSON. I know you people who come from places where water isn't a museum-quality oddity think I'm flipping out over nothing, but I can't remember the last time it rained in May. It is currently 64 degrees as I type. Yesterday's LOW was 78. Think about that one. COOL and RAINING in MAY in TUCSON. The zombies are coming, people, or the apocalypse, or the zombie apocalypse, or the four horsemen zombies, or something, because this is NOT NORMAL. (Please note: this is in no way intended to be a complaint. I am ecstatic. RAIN! I just worry that it comes across as complaining because this time of year, I don't know how to talk about the weather any other way.)




My knitting has been monogamous on Mary Jane. I have about 5 inches to finish the body, and at that point will need to finish the sleeves and pick up and knit the neckline. I'm pretty excited about this one and am at the point where, by the time I get sick of stockinette, it's time to do the serpentine stitch, and vice versa, so I'm still entertained. I think it will be nicely wearable and I'm excited to try it on.

In DH's health news, the doc says no RA. He was tested yesterday and they're going to run for valley fever antibodies, and if it's not that, it's biopsy time. (Even if it is valley fever, he'll probably still need a biopsy because there was a "nodule" in the lung xray when they were looking for pneumonia. Oh, and he forgot to tell the doc about that time 10 years ago when he gutted a house and found out later that all that dust he was making was asbestos-laced.) The doc says he has no bacterial or viral infections (hooray, no swine flu, or bird flu, or deer flu, or whatever), and if fungal infection is ruled out, the doc is at a loss. He's due to see the pulmonary specialist in about 10 days I think - it was tough to get him an appointment because apparently there was some big pulmonary conference in SoCal this month so all the lung docs are all full up. Anyway, they're squeezing him in, he's reducing his smoking and still talking about quitting, and he's FREAKING ME RIGHT THE HELL OUT. Overnight he stopped talking about buying rims for his car and started talking about "making sure the family is taken care of". My mind keeps yelling at itself to stop flipping out because they haven't found anything wrong and it's probably going to be no big deal and treatable, but then he goes and makes some comment about running out of time and I get all flipped out again. I told him he's absolutely forbidden from having anything serious or untreatable, and if he dies young it will be because I kill him and no other reason, but you know, he's a contrary jerk and will probably get something insane just to piss me off. Because it IS all about me, after all. Anyway, more healthy lung thoughts for him, and healthy brain/heart thoughts for me. Bug is starting to wonder what's wrong with my eyes that they're always red and leaking. (DH told me not to go blogging about how he's dying or anything like that, but keeping it in my head was making it get bigger and scarier than it needed to be, so I figured I'd let you people textually smack me upside the head and tell me to quit being so dramatic because it's nothing.)
Anyway, it's already 9:45am and I haven't started drinking yet! I'm going to go make a margarita and knit some Mary Jane.

Liftoff.

My mood may be lifting, and it has little, if anything, to do with the giant bottle of tequila and unopened bottle of margarita mix I found stashed in my pantry. (Okay, it does have something to do with that, but that's just incidental.) My dear and long-gone aunt is visiting this week. Usually I complain about this one, but when she's late, I feel such relief that the bitch finally showed that I can't help but be in a good mood. o.0 Anyway, now I realize why I'd been so very darn pissed off and heat-sensitive the last week.
Yesterday I went outside in the heat of the day. It didn't suck as bad as I thought it would. I sat in the shade, even knitted a row, while Bug played in the dirt. It was too warm to stay out for long, but the sunshine and the breeze was nice. DH was late getting home from work, so rather than keep dinner for hours and hours, we went out and had some pasta. On the way home, whilst listening to DH complain about feeling crappy (more on that later) I spontaneously decided Bug needed a park outing. (I thought DH was going to kill me when I mentioned the park in mid-complain, but I asked him to drop me and Bug off and we walked home.) I thought I was a pioneer, but it turns out that I am just dumb. Tons of neighbors came out in the pleasant evening, walking their dogs, playing with their kids, and messing around in the park. I've been living in this desert for 29 years and only now just figured out that I can go out in the evening and not die. The slides didn't burn the boy child, and I could stand there and push him in the swing for what felt like hours and not wilt in the sun. All in all, an enjoyable time. Then we walked/jogged/sprinted home together in the twilight and waved at the neighbors sitting on their front porches. Seriously, if we get any more Norman Rockwell around here, I might gag. But I felt all relaxed in spite of my commitment to cynicism and bad attitude.
DH is having health issues. One would think that the inability to breathe and the fact that there is "something fuzzy" in his lung x-ray would be more incentive to quit smoking, but one would be wrong. He's thisclose but won't let himself make the final leap. The dummy. Anyway, he was tested for RA (no results yet), he's been given antibiotics for pneumonia (didn't work), he's been given a referral to a pulmonologist. Two separate medical professionals we know in private life suggested he get tested for valley fever, but one of them pointed out that it's so common around here as to be a standard test, so he'd probably already been tested and ruled out. Not sure, though, as his PCP is an internist who specializes in diabetes and may not know the local fauna (valley fever is a fungus that lives in the lungs) well. I may never know what he's been tested for because he is a stereotypical man when it comes to doctors, and he doesn't ask questions and only goes in when he thinks he's dying or he can't stand me nagging him anymore. (Seriously - last year he lived with double pneumonia for weeks and finally went to the doctor to shut me up - he SO thought the doc was going to tell him he just had a cold. My I Told You So dance was big and mighty that day.) Anyway, good healing thoughts for DH's lungs, if you please.
I managed to get the Bug sleeping in his own bed for the first time in about 18 months, and it's mostly glorious. The last few nights he's woken up in the middle of the night. This morning at 3:30 I actually heard noises and went in to find that he'd taken down the baby gate, turned on all the lights and was playing with toys and had woken Squeak up. SIGH. I scootched him back to bed, gave Squeak a bink, and bless the little boogers, they both went to sleep with nary a tweet after that.
Not much else is happening, really. I spend my days surfing for jobs (and it doesn't help that the same job appears posted by the hiring company and three different recruiting agencies. I thought the tech writing market in Sierra Vista was a-hoppin' until I realized I'd applied like six times for the same job through different agencies.) and cuddling my kids and mostly ignoring housework. There has been knitting, mostly on Mary Jane. Look! I even have a picture.



You know, as much as I whine about not being cut out for stay-at-home-motherhood, I gotta say that having this time with my boys is pretty excellent. I still start thinking about drinking at 9am, but god, they're great. Yesterday, Bug came over and leaned on my shoulder and said, "Mama? You're my best friend." *melt* I'm glad I get the time, because damn, this kid is getting big.



And this one gets smilier and bouncier and sweeter every day. (And MAN he loves his little satin butterflies.)



You know, I could get used to this.

(Oh, and a purely hypothetical PSA. When your kid writes on his face and says, "I'm a kitty cat," and you think, "WTH, they're washable," and fix him up a little, they aren't as washable as you think.)

The cake said eat me, I swear it.

I did not go to the job today. We did some figuring, and after accounting for daycare, said job would have paid $100 a week less than unemployment. (I should never have applied for it. I skimmed the job listing and thought it was maintaining technical manuals as in EDITING them, not like printing out a changed page and filing it. Actually, that was two different jobs. One person printed. One person filed. Tax dollars at work, y'all.) I can use that $100 to buy happy pills when the "what are you makin'? coffee? are you making coffee mama? can I see the coffee mama? are you makin' coffee? where's the coffee? can I see the coffee? are you makin' coffee mama?" routine runs a little thin.

****************

This morning I noticed the cover of my new IK was cut up and the scissors were laying nearby. I said to Bug, "Don't cut things like this, and DON'T PLAY WITH SCISSORS!" He smiled sweetly at me and said, and I swear this is a direct quote, "Maybe you should put your scissors away."
Touché.

****************

I have been knitting on Mary Jane. I thought it would go all speedy like when I took the armhole stitches off the needles and only had to do the body. I forgot how many sport weight stitches are required to circumnavigate my girth. There are many. It is still not fast.

****************

Don't tell Nora, but I jogged the other day. For five whole seconds, whilst chasing Bug on his bike. (Surprisingly, my rack did not smack me in the face and knock me unconscious.) I burned off so many calories, I came home and ate a whole cake.

****************

DH did get the job he interviewed for, and started Monday. (They REALLY wanted him.) This exacerbates the mental issues revolving around myself, my attitude toward being a housewife, and my mother, and perhaps a little jealousy regarding the fact that my husband is eminently more employable than I am. I hate cleaning, and the cobwebs in my psyche have been there for a while. It's not pretty. I've been weeping and gnashing my teeth about how my DH isn't supportive and how he sucks and blah blah blah (most of this has been in my head, you can thank me for sparing you) but it turns out most of my recent unhappiness is my own attitude. I gotta say, it sucks deeply to find out you're to blame for your problems. (Not to say he's totally blameless for the fighting, but there is little resolution when the fighting isn't really the reason I'm fighting. Clear as mud?) Will I tell him that? Oh hell no. Can't have too much personal enlightenment at one time, y'all.