Misery loves company

I’m the misery.

You’re the company.

I’m particularly fond of the dark circles. Let it be known that I feel like C*R*A*P.

It was another couch day.

The only good thing is that at times my brain was not completely dead. It put “two and two together”, so to speak, in regards to the battle of the stash vs. what the hell do I do now.

For, oh…maybe 3 years?…I’ve had some Schaefer Laurel in Frida Kahlo, 100% cotton, sitting in my stash. (I took a bus tour with a LYS to the Schaefer farm near here, and bought it then. That’s a great little field trip; go if you get the chance. She actually dyes the yarn in her kitchen. Or at least she did then. And dries it in the barn.) Now it’s 1/8 of the way into becoming a summer weight Clap.

I finished the i-cord for the Noro Booga Bag, but have yet to felt it. The energy for such activities was sorely lacking today.

The boyfriend, dear man that he is, brought over enough cold and flu medicine to start a clinic with, and a dish of macaroni and cheese from a Caribbean restaurant he likes. (I know. I know. Mac and cheese on the islands?) It’s one of my favorite comfort foods, though, and I ate every bit of it. (So maybe I’m not dying, after all.)

Anyway, he stayed long enough to see a movie on HBO in it’s entirety, during which time I fell asleep. Yep. I’m a hot date.

I made a crapload of stitch markers yesterday.

(Resume whine here)

(Sort of) middle aged and right now I want someone to tuck me in and hand spoon me my cough medicine. Turning on the humidifier and throwing some Vick’s around for effect would be nice, too.

Barring that, I want my fluffy gray nursemaid to help me to bed. But he’s so busy racing from window to window, keeping an eye on heaven knows what, that I can’t catch him still enough to catch a good picture, let alone coerce him to snuggle with me in bed.

Whine, whine, whine.

I don’t do illness well at all.

Points Tracker 911

I joined Weight Watchers Online today. On the menu: Three months of obsessively recording everything I eat.

Then converting that to a point system. Target points/day? 29.

Today’s grand total?

58.5

I’m seriously thinking this is not what the good folks at WW had in mind.

Perhaps that fistful of chewy strawberry Twizzlers had something to do with it. Or was it the chocolate covered pretzels?

Tomorrow will be better. I have it all planned out.

This time tomorrow I will be licking the walls hoping for a taste of something sweet…

On a totally unrelated note, “Hallelujah” on K. D. Lang’s new Watershed disc

is out of this world.

Quick.

Go and download it.

You won’t be sorry.

No knitting content as there’s little here that looks any different than it did last week. I did knit a couple rows of the Clap tonight. Tomorrow night is my study group for the CHPN (hospice and palliative care) certification exam, so don’t expect to be hearing from this corner of the world….

Don’t worry. Harrison will keep a lid on things.

Um?

Maybe there’s a Weight Watchers for cats?

Winter dilemma

He opted to stay inside.

If the driving wasn’t so rat-assed bad today, it would have been perfectly lovely. As it was, it was just lovely.

Okay. Enlarge that last one and tell me what you think those little spots of green are. I swear I didn’t tamper with this. Are they strange light reflections? Trick of the lens? Or…

…buds?

The Oh Brother Where Art Thou scarf (dumb rename of a perfectly aptly named Brooklyn Tweed Noro scarf, but this one’s for my brother) is coming along.

It’s Friday night and I’m spent. Going to go knit a while and then crawl under the covers.

Up and coming Clapotis

I just have one more repeat of the increase rows (followed by rows 1-6 of the twelve), then I can start the straight rows. At some point after that, I get to start dropping and ripping! You can’t imagine how much I look forward to this. Dropping? Ripping? On purpose? Oh, my. You can see the lines that will rip out, made right now by sets of twisted stitches that will (supposedly) create a neat border to the rows of bars created by the dropped stitches.

Better shot.

Lorna’s Laces is nice stuff. It has softness and substance, all at once. The colors look a little, well, intense, in these pictures, but in real life, I hope that when the ripping is done, the effect will be a little less riotous. No matter, I like color against all the black and brown I have in my (boring) wardrobe.

Someone’s grumpy cat interrupted the photo shoot.

Seeing that it’s only Wednesday night, and I have back to back meetings tomorrow on both sides of town…a meeting with the medical directors tomorrow afternoon that most likely will bring news of more and better, and did I mention more? documentation that we must do to stay compliant with regs….

I wish I could spend a little more time in this, my favorite corner of the world.

Idjut!

I promise my dad fruitcakes every Christmas. Some years he gets them in February, but he’s a casual sort of guy, and doesn’t let this sort of thing bother him.

So…yeah. I’m a month ahead of schedule. Good for me.

I prepared the pans.

You’re supposed to grease the pans, then grease heavy brown paper, then line the pans. Since I have the memory of a newt, and Wegman’s doesn’t routinely hand out brown paper shopping bags, I didn’t have any brown paper this morning. I briefly considered hacking into a Sephora bag, but then all that shiny black paper and ink and heaven-knows-what kind of chemicals…ick.

So I opted for printer paper.

Yeah.

I wish me luck, too.

So first you mix all the dry ingredients, of which fruit and nuts qualify, also.

Then you mix the wet ingredients (duh).

And then mix them all together in one huge bowl of sticky sweet sludge, and put them in the pans.

At which point you pop the little dears into the oven at 300 degrees for an hour, then cover them with foil and bake them for another 30-60 minutes, or whenever you get tired of waiting or they smell good, or whatever. Because every year it’s different.

What is NOT supposed to happen is five minutes after the oven door closes, you see this.

Shit.

I forgot to mix in the butter.

So out come the pans, I redump them into the big bowl, pick out my carefully greased frigging printer paper, reline the <insert swear word here> pans, mix in the damned butter, and put them in the oven again.

WTF.

One of these years I will get the process down. Or ideally, I will find a baking container that effortlessly spits out sticky, gummy fruitcakes without all this cutting and pasting of Crisco soaked printer paper.

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

Yesterday I whacked the Christmas tree.

This is what remains.

A clean, neat place. Even the couch looks good. See the cat enjoying my shawl along the back of the couch. His posturing is a little, er, possessive, but what’s new.

What? You say you can’t see?

Here.

I’m pissed (no pun intended) at him today. Seems our little testosterone riddled feline felt the need to establish possession (see a trend here?) of a packing box I was going to send to Albany, packed with fruitcakes. Or maybe he just wanted my father to get a whiff of him, you know, in that friendly cat sort of way. Little bastard.

But he is cute. So his furry gray ass stays. I can find another box.

<Sigh>

Wisp

In a totally unexpected flash of brilliance, the alpaca scored at Rhinebeck, 2005 joined forces with Knitty’s Wisp from Summer, 2007. See pattern here.

Would it be bragging to say that this is going to be one of the best things I’ve knitted?

I totally love how the alpaca is working up. I think I’m going to use some of my grandmother’s buttons when it’s finished. If they’re too heavy, then I’ll find some lightweight shell buttons at Joann’s or some such place.

I could slip right under all this alpaca goodness and drift off to sleep…

I’ve been home sick for two days and have done absolutely nothing. Which is the idea of sick days, I guess. Some sort of weird stomach bug, no doubt acquired at the hospital. Strangest part was, the thing that bothered me the most was my calves ached like crazy. Woke me out of a sound sleep. Then the nausea hit.

But it seems to have gotten better. The BF brought me groceries today, and ginger ale, then drove me to the bank and out to get something to eat (for him) and drink (for me). Then we came back here and he helped me with some things around the house. He is awfully good to me.

I’m a little sad because he’s leaving the country for a week starting on Monday night. I’ll miss him. But he’ll be back. He just needs to go back to his country of origin for a few days and reconnect.

On the good side of things, he has another interview tomorrow for another internship, which means he now has to choose which one he wants out of three possibilities.

Gratuitous cat pictures follow. There haven’t been any in a while, and I don’t want you to think he ran away, or something.

Evidently I bothered him by taking pictures while he was at his evening security post, keeping watch over the back yard.

Yes?

What do you want?

Geesh…

WHAT’S SO FRIGGING IMPORTANT?

Let a man work, would you?

Looking ahead

So the craziness that is Xmas is behind me for another year. I swear. Next year will be different. Less last minute emphasis on buying. (I tried this year. I really did. But at the eleventh hour, I collapsed under pressure.) I think I need to figure out what Christmas means to me, if anything. And if it means nothing but going through the motions of buying/planning/receiving, then part of me wants to stage a coup d’etat against the whole thing.

The other part of me, the part that got some really nice presents, wants a repeat performance next year. Somehow I have to combine the fun stuff with a sense of purpose, some sort of meaning.

I have 362 days to do that in.

Looking ahead to the new year is fun. I’m a note taking sort of gal. I like colored pens and flow charts and index cards vs. notebook vs. computer program for my planning endeavors. I like to plot out hoped-for vacations against on call weeks, tack in the birthdays to remember, and set up goals for myself for the year.

New Year’s Eve I like a little time alone to sit in the light of the Christmas tree and reflect on the year gone by. Some years I get to do this. Some years I don’t. Some years I can’t quiet my mind long enough to string two consecutive thoughts together.

The busy-ness of living gets in the way of the business of living.

Okaaaaay….

Clearly this is a post that needs to end before it becomes even more of a cliche.

One of the things that goes directly on the 2008 calendar is the palliative care conference in Scottsdale, AZ in March. Can’t wait for this. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a work conference.

Wish there was exciting news on the knitting front. However, I’m doing little more than slogging away on row after row of 2×2 rib and cable on

the waves scarf.

I ripped out the Silk Garden Lite that was trialing as a Clapotis. The Clap is going to be my Brooks Farms Four Play that I got at Rhinebeck, as originally planned.

I just really need to finish one project before I start another.

I’m considering making 2008, or at least part of it, the year to buy nothing but necessities, like I’ve read in those articles. Think of the money I’d save. Maybe I should try it for just a month, at first. Nothing but necessities. Food, gas, etc. No clothes, books, magazines, (gasp!) or yarn.

No shoes, bags, jewelry, or makeup. No notebooks or pens unless there’s a dire need. And the word ‘need’ needs to be explicitly defined, as well.

Taking it one step further, maybe I could sell all my extraneous stuff on eBay and commit to a simpler lifestyle. Who really needs all this crap, anyway?

Ah…the pleasure of the new year, and new possibilities.

Must. Go. To. Bed.

Harrison wiggles his sweet pink toes at you.

Mulligan

Size 9’s and sort of sloppy vs. size 5’s and…better?

Things have quieted down at work just a little (insert knock on wood here). At least today I got a chance to take a breath and catch up.

I might be going to a conference in Scottsdale in March. The desert in March is not a bad thing.

Warm.

Dry.

Yep. I’ll go.

I’m renouncing traditional Christmas. Sure, I will do the Christmas Eve thing with my kids so as not to trounce yet another of their traditions. But Christmas day is mine, all mine. I will knit and watch movies and nap. I think my mother and her boyfriend (the word ‘boyfriend’ over the age of 24 is absurd, but ‘lover’ is way too much information and ‘partner’ is just weird, so ‘boyfriend’ it is) have the right idea in driving up north on Christmas day and draping pine trees with stringed popcorn and cranberries for the wildlife. I think a feast for the birds and squirrels out back, and maybe some apples in the woods for the deer is a good idea. Can’t forget the little beasties who share the earth with us.

Then my ‘boyfriend’ (see above) and I might go see a movie, and call it a day.

If I can remember to take a few minutes between now and then to just sit still and breathe, it might be all right, after all.

*****

Look what I found in the bookcase last night. The LCPL in Afghanistan, back in…what…2003? No…2004.

Hard to remember. Look at that gun. Just the picture scares me. I can’t imagine my child actually using it. But. He still loves guns, and he loves firing. My daughter tells a story how this summer he was target shooting with his father, got down on the ground, assumed the “position” (whatever that is) and fired straight into the bullseye. Causing his father to frown and say, “hmmmmm.”

Sort of like, “ruh roh! Baby boy’s done gone and grown up. Now what.”

*****

Tonight’s cat activity shot is…Harrison at his post, between the slats of the blinds, keeping watch on the backyard. Because you never know what might be going on back there…

*****

The two sides of Harrison P. Cat. Or…

…how can a creature this sweet…

…look this damned evil?

Startitis?

If startitis is the disease that is manifested by the uncontrollable urge to start a new project while current projects hang limp on the needles…then I have a roaring case of startitis.

Clapotis in Silk Garden Lite.

Those are not enormous dropped stitches up there. Those are the yo’s that are supposed to stop the ripping when I drop a stitches on purpose later on. Or so the story goes….

Green is my favorite color.

At least it is today.

I’m knitting on size 9’s, and hoping my stitches aren’t too loose. I don’t think so. I’m aiming for an easy rip of the dropped stitch portion of the scarf, later on. And I want a nice drape. (Well. Maybe it is too loose. Crap.)

So I’ll soldier on and hope for the best.

In the good news department — Christmas boxes were mailed today. Phew. Cross that off my list.

Wouldn’t it be nice if it was okay to be happy with just a string of pretty lights, and maybe a candle to illuminate the dark at Christmas? But every year I succumb to the power of the Xmas machine and the demand to do more more MORE.

Buy more, spend more, wrap more, give more, clean more, cook more, plan more, drive more. Only to end up looking forward to next Wednesday, because then I can rest.

Next year I’ll do better.

But I tried. I kept decorations simple. Just some (okay, they’re fake) candles to light the way.

Someone at work said something today that stuck with me.

“My ghosts come out at Christmastime.”

That’s exactly what I would have said, if I’d known it was what I wanted to say at all.

“My ghosts come out at Christmastime.” Indeed. They do.

*****

But there’s tons to be happy about, too. My kids are home safely from college. There’s still money in the bank, even after the shopping is done. I have next Tuesday off. Tomorrow is hump day. Tomorrow morning I get to bend the ear of my medical director about some of these nightmare discharge plans I’ve been dealing with, confident that she’ll listen and hear only the important stuff in the midst of all my chatter, and give some really decent advice like she always does.

And…

Harrison says, “Mom may not like the Christmas season very much, but I sure do loves me my tree!”

Can’t get it up this year

Made you look, huh?

It’s not what you think. I can’t seem to stir up much enthusiasm for the holidays. Working through them doesn’t help much, I’m sure. Just being overwhelmed contributes, too, I suppose.

Guess maybe it’s time to set some limits.

Anyway….I have a lot of wrapping to do. Would it be okay if I just shmushed everything into gift bags and shook up some tissue paper oh-so-artfully, crammed it in, and presented everything that way?

(“Oh my GOODNESS! Would you look at this! She’s so clever! She blurred the picture so we can’t see what she got us!”)

My Malabrigo waves scarf is coming along. I see myself burying my nose in it. It’s warm and comforting, and brings to mind a small child self-soothing with a blankie.

(Yes, that’s right. I’m into self soothing again. So what?)

Harrison wishes his mom would pay more attention to him and quit dicking around with the damned scarf.

PLEASE?

Several months ago I picked up some Reynolds Whiskey on sale.

I have been sitting on it ever since. (Another yarn purchase with no clue.) However, I found this on Ravelry. I think that might be my next project. I want to line the bag, though. And change out that goofy looking handle they have on the pattern. The one they have is kind of busy.

I should be baking fruitcakes. But like every other year in the 20 year history of fruitcake baking for my dad…it’s not the mixing that I dread. It’s the lining of all those pans with greased brown paper.

I have no motivation today. None. I’m sort of hoping for a massive amount of snow so I can work at least the morning from home tomorrow. I have a ton of documentation to finish from Friday.

If I don’t get moving, Christmas is going to bite me in the ass.

Blech. This picture of the cat grasps what I feel like today. I only want to watch the snow fall….