Last day of the first half.

Hey, I remember this stuff!

It's knitting, right?


I can't tell you how long it's been since I had a picture of knitting on this here blog.  (Well, I could, but I'm too lazy to go back and look.)  I actually got to do some of that this weekend whilst ignoring the still-unpacked boxes lying around the house.
Saturday morning after a leisurely, loooooong breakfast...



...T went outside and gathered the bikes.  With the "help" of the chillens, he fixed them up, pumped up the tires, tidied everything nicely, and got us all ready to go.
There's a lovely park near the new place, with a bike path that goes for miles and miles, past xeriscape gardens, ballparks, duck ponds (we saw a TURTLE!!!!!!! MOM DO YOU SEE THE TURTLE?!  THERE IT IS MOM DO YOU SEE IT? MOM! MOM!!! A TUUUURRRRRTLLLLLLEEEE) and it had been calling to me.  We helmeted up...
 

...strapped Smacky in the seat, and headed off, in the middle of the hottest part of the day.  It was a bit shady, which was nice, and we all remembered water and sunblock.  We didn't go far, as Bug's little legs and hard-used bike tire easily, but it was a high-point, for sure.  After a grocery-shopping trip (during which we discovered there IS a limit to what a diaper will hold, and it was actually SMACKY leaking from the cart and not any of the groceries) we got a babysitter, and headed out to the Rhythm Room for a CD release party.  We saw Chris James and Patrick Rynn (part of the Rhythm Room Allstars) who were joined by Big Pete Pearson.  Big Pete looks like Redd Foxx and BB King combined, and in his early 80s, he can still sing the blues and shake it.  Live blues? Rocks my socks right off.  (We bought the CD for Chris and Patrick, and Big Pete; I have only listened to the first one, but really, live blues has something intangible that is lost when you put it on CD.)
Sunday involved the boys playing camping outside (cuz nothing says fun like wrapping up in a sleeping bag in 108 degrees)...



while I tidied up the kitchen, mopped the floor (hooray for no-longer sticking), and discovered that my Dyson sucks, cuz it no longer sucks.  There was chocolate cookie baking, too.  (Chocolate crinkles, to be exact.)



After I ensured there was no heat stroke and finished my cleaning, I sat on the couch with a beer and my knitting, and people?  It was OH. SO. GOOD.  Sometimes I forget to relax when I know there are boxes to unpack, dishes to wash, floors to un-stick...  I will have to do a better job of taking time to have fun in the evenings.
Since it has been several days since I wrote most of this, I'll add a little more - yesterday we bought our tickets to go to Seattle for T's birthday.  We'll be gone for a whole week (in the hottest part of the summer, OH YES I'm getting out of dodge) visiting T's parents and celebrating his mumblemumble birthday with his family. 
Since we'll be heading to someplace that has decent weather and actual moisture in the air, I figured I'd better finish B-Side.  I'd knitted the better part of one sleeve and discovered that the gauge I'd used to recalculate the increases was suddenly no longer the right gauge, and 15 inches of (sport-weight) sleeve had to be ripped.  I ripped it out and threw it aside in a fit of rage and it's lucky I didn't tear it to bits with my teeth set it aside, but thought yesterday I'd like to have it done for Seattle.  Whaddya think - two sleeves, a button (zipper?) band and the making-up in a month?  (I'm not doing the shawl collar.)



We'll see, I s'pose.  I'll be giving it my best effort.  (Which is good because even though I bought more size 5 Options tips to replace the heinous, awful, OMGIhatethemsomuch Zephyr tips I was using, I can't find them, so the red Palindrome scarf is on time-out until I get bored with B-Side again finish B-Side.) And why no, I haven't been thinking about buying the extra beads I need to finish Madli.  No, not at all, and I haven't even been googling the website for that bead shop near work to see if I could get the seed beads I need.  Nope, cuz I'm focusing on B-Side and not even thinking about those other projects...  And under no circumstances was I thinking about destashing the brown Beaverslide I bought for Linden and getting something in red like I'd originally planned.  Nope, focused, that's me.

(Need to point out that all photos that are a) good, b) not of knitting, and c) don't actually contain T were actually TAKEN by T, and I had the audacity to post them without editing them in any way.)

Chapter: The Next

We are officially moved. Unpacking has been in earnest, cleaning has been undertaken (damn, how could I have forgotten my mop and ALL the myriad brooms and dustpans in Tucson?) and we are learning to use our new place to its best function. T showed Bug where his trains were, in the playroom, and sat with Bug and built a track together. Bug generally prefers to be where we are in the house, but now he hears the call of the trains, and he will go up and play alone for a while after dinner. The playroom? Best idea ever. His tracks are spread all over hither and yon in the room, it's a minefield of small trains and toys to step on, and I close the door and suddenly the upstairs is all tidy. LOVE. I just REALLY need to make sure that door is shut before I expect him to come downstairs to eat breakfast before school, lest I have to fetch him multiple times. The trains are strong in this one.
It's a smaller place than my house in Tucson, but there is more storage and less to take care of, and the master bedroom is HUGE by comparison. I have my whole fabric and yarn stash in the master closet and there's still room for clothes and shoes. Seriously, I am not much of a clothes/shoes person, but adequate closets have moved to the top of my List of Turn-Ons. I am nearly orgasmic over the storage space. (Yeah, I really am very excited about it. People, I have places to PUT THINGS now.)(Pictures later. Too lazy.)
Due to some things I don't want to talk about, and a case of food poisoning (mine) and strep (Smacky's), it was a rough first week, but the weekend made up for it a bit. We rode the light rail through town, went swimming at Grampa's for Father's Day, grilled salmon out on the patio, and generally enjoyed the first low-key weekend in ages. (When we opened up the packet of salmon, Bug saw it and said, "I don't like that!" I let him get away with it for a bit, then it occurred to me - he used to eat it all the time. I forced him to eat one small bite before he could have any more salad or corn, and he announced, "I LOVE THIS." He ate four more servings.)


On the train.

Work is going. I am still in the beginning stages - introductory projects, lots of reading SOPs, training, organizing. I think I will like it, though Ravelry, blogs, Facebook and messenger are all blocked from work. This whole working-all-day thing is TOTALLY overrated, especially when working = reading lists of FDA acronyms. Truly painful. My ability to keep up with blogs is severely curtailed, but I will be trying hard to catch up. I know you will forgive me a bit of skimming while I try to make a dent in the 150+ blog posts I have to read...

Still, nominally, a knitting blog, so I will point out that I live a scant few miles from Knit Happens, and I am currently knitting Palindrome for OFA in Swish DK. There, yarniness covered.

Hurdles

Are falling, one by one. I got the call tonight that the place I liked best last weekend has accepted my application, and I'll be meeting the landlord to sign the lease on Sunday.
Google Maps has this nifty application where you first search for a path or a location, and then, if you enter a business type in the search box, it finds all businesses of that type in the zoom-range of the map. I entered the address for my new place and my new job, then searched daycares, and found a list along any number of routes I can take. This Saturday I will be checking them out and finding the appropriate spot for my little princes. Besides my beautiful friends, the boys' daycare will be the hardest thing to leave in Tucson.
Today has been a crappy night, with the Bug acting weird and saying unusual things, the Smacky having a crappy fever, and my stomach in knots worrying about this move. I am excited, thrilled, looking forward to it, and terrified to step out of the cocoon that has been my comfort zone for 10 years. How do you explain to someone who hasn't experienced it, that sometimes you just need to cry out the toxic feelings? And how do you get the tears to come when they've been locked up for so long so they don't freak out your babies? I'd feel much better if I could remember where my copy of Steel Magnolias is.
(Incidentally, this is not me being maudlin or wanting you to comfort me. This is just a straight up report. My emotions have filled me to the brim and they need to spill out my eyes. No worries about me, really.)

***********

I have had this song stuck in my head all day.

And I'm glad the light still hits your face
And I'm glad every time you answer the phone.
For you, life and home have never been an easy place,
But I'm glad to be part of your own.

Sung by John Gorka; I'm sure you've never of him. I'm not entirely sure how *I* got one of his CDs, but I like it. This particular song is for his mother, and it has this air of melancholy about it that strikes me today. Beautiful, content, but a little sad. I think that's where I am today. Content with the choices I'm making, happy to be moving in the direction I've chosen with the people I've chosen, but still, a little sad. A huge chapter in my life is closing soon, and I would be a big ol' liar if I said it didn't sting a bit.
Fortunately I am close to The Fiber Factory so I know Lynn will be visiting...

Sparse.

The last weeks have been sparse, it's true. I haven't been on Rav much, haven't knitted much, haven't even commented on blogs much. I purged a whole list of them too, just in the effort to stop the demands on my time.

I can tell you my news, though - a few weeks ago, when I asked for some harnessing of the knitterly good will and cosmic power you *know* we wield? I had an interview for a job in Phoenix. I wanted the job, because I want out of Tucson, I want more time with T, my family is in Phoenix... a whole host of reasons. Then I had the first interview, heard more about the job, and the job itself moved to the top of the list of reasons why I wanted the job. :-D A few weeks ago, I had a second interview, and the following week (last week, in fact) I was offered the job.
Eep!
I accepted, I did a quiet happy dance, I waited a few days and gave my notice at work here in Tucson. I have one week left here, a week to pack and sort and purge and toss, and I start my new job on 6/14. (Seriously, the sorting and purging and tossing? I may have to rent a roll-off dumpster.) This weekend the boys and I are heading to Phoenix to hang with the fam and T and look for places to live. Keep your fingers crossed that we can find a place - I'm looking to rent for a while (so someone else is responsible for the unclogging of the drains and the fixing of the appliances) but finding a place that will accept my two remaining mutts is challenging, to say the least. Whether I find a place this weekend or not, next weekend will be about finding a daycare, and the following week, the one I have off, will be about packing up the house.
Eep!

Anyway, things are really wonderful here, I am happy, I am excited and looking forward to the challenges of the new job and getting to know my old city again (and having access to a nearby pool ROCKS ohyesitsoverymuchdoes). The Bug is excited too - he loves T and is excited to see him more often, and Grampa, and Uncle Monkey Butt and Tira Karen and the rest of them. (Smacky too, but he has no clue anything new is going on, other than the fact that Mommy is tense in the house and there's a lot of trash and interesting stuff to mess with everywhere.)

I doubt I will post again until after the move, or at least after the first day of work if I don't find a place right away. Don't worry about me, though - life is good. Thank you again for all your Vibes of Knitterly Goodness.

Gentlemen, we can rebuild her. We have the technology.

AKA, rebirth.

(Woo! More navel-gazing! Awesome! And to head off the comments before they start, no I DON'T knit anymore. I navel-gaze.)

Nine months ago today, Rick died. In the time it takes to grow a new human, I grew...myself. This post will be full of cliches and crap like that, and will include uncomfortable admissions. Prolly no rants, though Cookie and Joan and Nora have a lock on those this week.
Nine months ago today, my life ended. The life I knew was gone without so much as a gasp. It left me and my young sons and we were bereft. It was a Friday. There are whole hours missing from that day, but the images in my head of Rick, both before and after he was gone, will be with me forever. He was a strong, vital man who withered away before my very eyes, and the universe saw fit to take him away completely, for whatever reasons it felt like. Assuming there were any reasons at all.
Nine months ago today, this life I have now began. It started out with a great deal of pain and anguish, but also lots of love. Friends and family made sure I was taken care of, that beer magically appeared in my house, that the boys were fed and watered and exercised and taken to school, that the laundry was done. Having given birth once with no drugs (thank you very much stupid nurse who didn't talk to my midwife before countermanding the order YES I'M STILL BITTER) I can say that giving birth to my new life was more painful and took so much more labor. (See? bad clichés, I has dem.) Railing against it didn't help. Accepting it didn't make the pain stop. Avoiding it was only temporary. My friends, it sucked.
And then one day, it didn't. Not the whole day, anyway. I got a new job. I got some new friends at the new job, ones who weren't associated with any pain because they were part of the new life. (Not to say that I'm not blessed by my old friends, but avoidance is so much easier when no one around you knows you're avoiding, yanno?) I bought some new clothes, I took the boys to fun places, and I started to live this new life. Friends continued to make me feel loved and to let me know they were around for me. I had a few dates. I had a one night stand with a crazy Jesus freak. I remembered why dating sucks. I met someone wonderful and fell in love. I started going out and experiencing things I hadn't done before. I started running (yes, Nora, you read that right) and got new goals in my life. I took my babies and my husband's ashes and together we let him go. I came home to find my new love waiting for me at the airport, and realized with great relief that having love in my new life was fitting and right.
It's hard to admit this due to the implications of what I'm not saying, but here it is: it has been nine months, and in that nine months I have grown into a whole new person. I still have the occasional pangs, because this birth was different than others. But as Lynn said when I was wondering to her about how great I felt, "It's called grace, and when it shows up, you welcome it." My new life makes me happy. Not the same - never the same - but amazing, nonetheless.

Land of the Lost

Yup. Welcome to AZ, where you don't need a permit to carry a gun, but you DO need one to be Mexican.
ANYWAY.
Here is a list of the random crap that has been happening since I got back.
1) First of all, thank you for all the kind words about Rick's trip, and Peaches. To be honest, both were a relief and took a load off my mind. I fulfilled my promises to Rick and his family, and to Peaches too. Peach always did like Rick best. ;-)
ii) The rest of my time has been crazy busy. I know everyone says that, and it's mostly true - life quickens its pace in the spring and suddenly there are gazillions of things to do, even if (like me) you don't garden or do housework or any of those things. Bug is now playing T-ball, which is totally hilarious. Teaching these kids the rules of a complex game like baseball is hit-and-miss. Last game there were kids fielding the ball when they were supposed to be running the bases, one kid refused to hit the ball toward the field and instead hit it toward where the catcher would have been, and Bug decided he didn't want to run the bases unless I was in the field and challenged him to a race. Which I had to do whilst holding Smacky. The Three Stooges had nothing on these kids.



c) I recalculated the increases on the sleeves of B-side. I did this because my gauge was 8rpi and the pattern called for 9rpi. (I think - when I calculated it, following the increases as written would have resulted in a sleeve that was like 23 inches long.) I knitted to the end of the recalculated increases, prepared to knit a bit to reach 19 inches, and realized that my gauge had changed and was now spot on with the pattern, and my sleeve was now 4 inches TOO SHORT. 12 of the 15 inches of sleeve, ripped. Sigh. Took me a whole week to admit I'd done it. Haven't touched it since.

IV)I have big things happening this week. Nothing I can share just yet, but if you wouldn't mind, please harness your knitterly powers and send good thoughts aimed at me, that whatever is for the best will happen.

5) Please tell me when my kid got big enough to start learning to write.



six) Fear not, Smacky's still little enough to be weird. (This is pretty much where he spends evenings, waiting for dinner. He is NOT eating the dog food, just chucking it around the kitchen. I swear he has a stash of it somewhere.)



G) This is where my free time goes anymore.

RIP, Peaches

You were a sweet old beast.

Gone home.

And promises kept.



(More photos from the trip, here.)

UPDATES, yo.

Those of you who wonder where the hell LeeAnn went, and why she never updates her blog anymore? Fix your feeds, y'all, they done broke. (And if you did not sub to her before, why the hell not?)

Fuzzy Logic.

Psst. Tell your friends.

An ode to my body, inspired by Twink

Warning. Extensive navel-gazing ahead. I mean it. Really. Read on at your own risk.
Someone told me the other day about the struggles her daughter was having about hitting puberty, and I started thinking about my own struggles at that age. How I felt like I didn't fit in because I wasn't blonde, tan, thin and pretty. How much fun I avoided so I wouldn't have to be seen in a bathing suit in front of the senior guys on the swim team. How much time and angst and emotion I spent by sitting in front of the mirror lamenting zits or freckles or how my mall bangs weren't tall enough or how I was too fat for Guess jeans.
What a waste.
I am 36 years old. I am not perfect. I am shorter than I'd like, chubbier than I'd like. Wrinkly. Freckly. Dry and oily at the same time. (Damn you, t-zone.) My knees hurt, my belly jiggles, I don't floss.
I don't really care.
My feet and legs carry me down the street, up the hiking trail, running around the park. My ears hear all the music I love, and my throat and mouth and lips and tongue belt it back out again, with varying degrees of success. (Bug says, "No Mama, I don't want any singing today" or "Please say that louder Mama, I like it") My eyes caress the people I love. They fill up and overflow with love, with anger, with sadness and with more happiness than I thought was possible. I carried two babies in this body. I carry them still. My arms can't do many pushups, but they hold my son when he's waking up in the morning and snuggling in my lap. They hug the friends who are having a bad day. My hands are rough because they help me climb the slide with the baby, and they cook dinner, and they make sweaters and scarves for kids who don't have other hands knitting for them. I write highly technical documentation with this brain. I make seriously low-class innuendos with the same organ. I like rhinestones and glitter but I hate pink. I straddle the Virgin/Whore paradox without much thought because, really, who cares? I don't fit in, I am not fashionable, I am not perfect. Never will be. But I am me, and life is good.
Love you, Twink.

A remedy for yesterday, plus Eye Candy

A big longer than yesterday's video, but OH. SO. WORTH. IT.



(provided to me by Cindy)

(ETA: apparently the comments aren't working right. if you feel inclined to comment and can't, lemme know and I will bug the ID people more...)

Work through the pain

Thanks to Lynn in Tucson for inflicting this upon me sending this to me...

What a day!

I have been having a lovely couple of days. And really, I think they'll only get better. TODAY, however, you must please to be going to my beloved VUBOQ's place and wish him a happy DAMN YOU LOOK GOOD 40th birthday!

It's warm again

I have been playing outside. (Tried to start cutting on that tree, but my neighbor came over to help and ended up knocking the chain off. Still trying to find the repair manual... Sigh.)
So I have some photos to warm up Joan, and LeeAnn, and Nora and Angie and Peter and whoever else lives someplace with actual winter. (You guys can return the favor this summer when even the snakes and lizards are wondering WTF they're doing living in this hellhole...)


As always, click to embiggen, should you so desire.

I choose to see the bright side

Like, Yay, I didn't actually get around to buying firewood last week, and also, wow, think how much sunlight the garden will get NOW!
Oooh, another one - Carrie's yard, now with 50% less pollen!





Shockingly bad (unedited, ha) photos due to poor lighting, poor camera, poor photography skills...

This one is still shockingly bad, but at least I brightened it up a bit, so you could better see the carnage...



No one hurt and no damage to the house, the wall, the dog run, or even the electrical lines, thank Bob. Though I did spend the next two hours wishing the other tree would fall on the house (going so far as to mentally tell the tree the best spot to fall to maximize damage without actually hurting either my family, my sewing machines or my stash) so as to render mortgage woes moot...

For next time, I have some photos to warm up Joan and the rest of you northern popsicle types, but for now, the rain wins out.

March on.

So, apparently since so many people found it necessary to tell me to be easy on myself, I sounded whinier than I'd intended last post. I wasn't really trying to whine, I swear it. I actually dunno what I was doing. Suffering from logorrhea? Trying to put Spring Fever into words? Trying to make my instant-gratification-wanting self sound grown up about the tantrum I wanted to have? WHINING, perhaps?
Sigh.
Anyway, this week things have been more On than Off. More sunlight and a few beautiful days here and there have gone a long way toward making me feel better, AND I finally sucked it up and did some of the yucky chores I didn't want to do. Still working on the IRS and the mortgage people, but as long as I'm not moving backwards I'm okay.
I did NOT finish my Olympic knitting, with which I am also okay. I did make surprisingly good progress given how little tolerance the Bug developed for the same two bloody commercials ad nauseum (yeah, okay, it was me - he was a fan of Ice Dancing and all the skiing crashes. He thinks crashing was their intent when they flung themselves down the hill at high speed with nothing but slippery sticks on their feet. I can't quite figure out where he got that idea...) I did remember how to fit a little knitting into my days, and how much happier I am when I do that. And I made progress, yo.


Horrible photo, but we've come to expect that here, no? As it turns out, the focus is way better once you turn off the macro setting. o.0

And here, and artsy silly shot, because my phone camera has a macro setting. (SIGH.)


I had hoped to get some photos of warm, but alas, my weekend looked like this.



I do love the rain, but I don't know what to make of the fact that for the last few weeks, the workdays have been sunny, mid 70s, and the weekends have been cold and rainy. Seems particularly cruel, given that we are nearing the end of our out-door season here in Satan's Blast Furnace.

Damn.

That's all I can think of for a title. The last few weeks have been... off. I know you know what I mean - nothing's terribly wrong, but everything takes longer than it should, is harder to do than it should be, and I continue to fall behind. Then I collapse in a heap on the weekend and get even FURTHER behind. It doesn't help that the stuff that's looming over my head is the BIG STUFF. Finishing up dealing with the death stuff is the big ugly right now; mostly taxes and mortgage. I think it's an obvious understatement when I say that the two entities involved don't really give a fig about my personal loss or our family's collective failure to plan for a rainy day. (Additional information: what century is this? The IRS isn't even allowed to give me a fax number until I MAIL them a request in writing for the information I need. I think they go out of their way to find useless people, or maybe just to make useless policies. Soon they'll outsource THEIR customer "service" to a call center in India too. Irate much? Who, me?)

On days like these, sometimes you need purple pancakes. (Yeah, all my photos are for crap. Sue me.)


Or a beautiful sunset.


Or a goofy kid modeling the lastest in Spiderman .


(As a side note: don't you love the way a kid smiles with his whole body? You can only see one eye but you know he's grinning from ear to ear.)


What else makes me happy these days? Hmm, well, it ain't this:


It *might* be this:


For those who don't know/care, that is nearly four pounds of my beloved Sage, last seen looking like this. I sent her off to Spinderella's, and they washed her again and carded her up, and damned if I don't want to dump out that bag and roll around nekkid in her. I won't, though - I have big plans for my lady and we can't be matting her up again.

Big plans. I think that might be part of my general malaise these days. Spring is here, as Cookie is so crabby about, and I feel like things need to be happening. You know what I mean? It's the same restless feeling I get in the fall. I feel like it's downright primal sometimes - the need to Get Moving, to Do Big Things, to fix it all at once. Early spring and late fall aren't times for baby steps, but that's all I'm capable of right now. I have set some things in motion and I want to see them come to fruition NOW. Today. Not next fall, not later, but Right This Very Minute. Whatever zen I had going on before has been replaced by a petulant child with the gimmes. It's a problem. I'm working on it.

And now for something Completely Different. I have an office phone. My boss ordered it. He apparently didn't specify that it needed to work, because no one bothered to put a phone jack in my cube - they just left the phone on the desk, with the disconnected cable. But I betcha they closed that work order...

Feelin' hothothot

And it's only February.
Which means it's time to post pictures of the weather, which is our reward for living in hell for 9 months out of the year.
Taken today:


Flowering pear (I think):


Apropos of nothing, one of my Firefox tabs is showing Jessalu's blog, with the title of the post being Epic. I keep seeing it out of the corner of my eye and reading "Epic Jesus".

And that is your random for the day. I have lovely pictures of Sabino Canyon from Sunday, beautiful water and warm sun and happy children, but I can find the battery charger for my camera and the computer cable for Rick's. And while the cards are interchangeable, those other things are not. Drat. They are stuck there forever. I am also working on B-Side for my Olympic project in the WIP finishing category. I think I have put on about 3 inches, which doesn't sound like much until you realize each inch is roughly 2400 stitches. I have four soul crushing rows before I divide for the armscyes and as FSM as my witness, I shall finish those four tonight.

Lene made me

Okay, she didn't really, but the one she posted reminded me of this. Not the same sentiment, but parts of the same whole.

I am standing upon that foreshore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails in the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, "There! She's gone!" "Gone where?" "Gone from my sight, that's all." She is just as large in mast and spar and hull as ever she was when she left my side; just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of her destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at that moment when someone at my side says, "There! She's gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

(Attributed to Victor Hugo, among others. See discussion of origins here.)

Multitasking isn't always the best option

Might have to buy some yogurt this time.