If I hear another #@%$*&*# carol...

I realize that the rest of the world is intent on kicking off the holiday season on this day, but honestly... can't we just skip it this year?

Today I'm supposed to be counting my blessings, showing my gratitude, being all cheery and aglow with the season's magic or something like that, but to be perfectly honest even pretending to do so is taking too much effort.

I cooked the turkey, made the sides, and the three of us sat and ate it in silence, just sort of going through the motions.

That's my theme song lately, I guess. As if just simply sticking to the routine will somehow magically lead me out of the rut I'm in.

*shrug*

If I were a drinker I'd be sauced right now. But I'm not, so I'm not. I suppose that sooner or later just going through the motions is going to stop being enough and something will have to give. I'm not ready to speculate on just what that might be right now.

Gobble, Gobble

No reason to panic

Do you know how many days we have left until Christmas? 33. Yep... only 33 days left, and how many of my Christmas gifts have I completed? Ummm... 2.

That's not to say that I don't know what I'm making, or don't have the supplies to make what I'm making, because for the most part I do. But where has all the time gone? 33 days to finish everything. It seems impossible! Especially when you take into consideration the fact that I'll need to finish them a week early in order to get them to their recipients on time. Then go ahead and subtract out the days I work, since those are days where I can't possibly pick up a hook, needle, hoop, pair of pliers, or any other craft device. That leaves me about 13 days to actually get everything done.

If I had nails I'd bite them all off.

So, if any of you lovely folks get a small little package from me with an IOU stuck inside, please understand. It's not that I don't love you enough to finish your stuff on time, it's just that I am a horrible procrastinator, and while I've known since (what? February?) that I was going to make you something, I didn't actually start until about October. Forgive me, please?

And just to prove that I really AM working on something, but without giving much away, here are some fairly cryptic pictures.



And J is all excited about helping, too. So much so that he insisted I buy him his own needles and yarn. I'll make him a knitter yet!

Becoming a Hooker

It starts out innocently enough. You'll just give it a try-- see how you like it. Then you fall in love with the nearly instant gratification of your work, and you just can't stop.

Yep, that's right. I've become a hooker. So much so that my poor knitting needles are starting to feel jealous.

Who would have thought that a simple little amigurumi cupcake made for your niece's birthday could turn you into a full blown crochet addict?


And before all of my knitterly friends roll their eyes and turn their backs on me forever, do know that my one true and first love will always be knitting. But it sure is helping me put a dent in my holiday gift list! I'm not a very fast knitter, and if left to knit something for all the folks on my list, I'd be in big trouble. Adding crochet into the mix allows me to knock out lots of the 'smaller' gifts so that I stand a slightly delusional chance of getting the 'bigger' knitting things done.

Mr. Worst Case Scenario

Conversation between me and one little boy with a very active imagination today:

Driving home from school, we come up to the traffic light near our house. The gas station on the corner has a small retention pond in front of it which is surrounded by a chain link fence. It is currently bone dry.

J: Mommy, why is there a fence there?

Me: Well, when it rains, all the water runs off the road and fills up there so that we don't have a flood. They put the fence there so that people don't accidentally fall in.

J: But Mommy, what if there were a rock on the sidewalk and someone wasn't looking where they were going, and they tripped on the rock and fell over the fence and into the water? Then what would we do?

Me: (Being silly) Well, we could get a fishing pole and fish him out.

J: (Very seriously) But what if we kept catching fish instead?

Me: Well, we could encourage him to swim to the edge.

J: What if he was sinking?

Me: We could call a lifeguard to swim out and save him.

J: But what if there wasn't a lifeguard around?

Me: Well, the police station is right across the street. I'm sure a police officer could save him.

J: But what if the police officers were all busy catching speeders?

Me: Well, then we could use a really long stick to reach the guy.

J: But what if the stick slipped out of our hands?

Me: We could get another stick.

J: But what if all of the sticks slipped out of our hands?

Me: (Grasping now) We could throw him a tire.

J: What if the tire sank?

Me: Tires don't sink. They're full of air.

J: What if it deflated and all the air blew out?

Me: (Silence....) Well, it's a good thing that fence is really tall.

J: Yeah, but ...

Me: Let's see what's on the radio.


Do I see an anxiety problem in the making here? Or is this the stuff every 4-year-old thinks about?

Random bits of nothing

A few days since my last post, but I'm having trouble finding uplifting, or even interesting things to blog about.

I've always loved fall-- the time of year when we can finally open up windows around here and turn off the a/c for a bit without suffocating or making the house feel like a sauna. And in truth, I still do love it. But for the first time ever I'm also feeling the effects of the shorter days. I know so many people who go around saying they suffer from something called 'seasonal affective disorder', and I've always just sort of rolled my eyes at them. But maybe there's a bit of truth to it. It just seems like there aren't enough hours in the day. I'm up and gone before sunrise, home well after dark, and I wonder if I'll ever see the sun at all. The list of things to do gets longer, and the hours get shorter. I find myself wanting to go to bed around 8, but most of the time I'm not even home from work by then. *sigh*

There's also a rash of stressful things going on in general around here. Mostly a house in need of some major attention and TLC, and that attention and TLC takes money that we don't have to spend, but every day we put it off, it's probably just adding to the cost of fixing it.

The things on my Christmas wish list this year are things like shed doors, window screens, a screen door with a screen intact and that actually latches instead of banging harshly against it's frame. A new refrigerator, a dryer (or a clothesline, even), a new septic/drain field. A water softener that works, since ours hasn't in over a year, and do you know how disgusting FL well water is? Let's not go there. I'm not even sure it's suitable for use.

Hubby and I have discussed these things, and the solutions to the problems that are 'must fixes', like the septic, and the only thing we can seem to come up with as a solution is another loan. Certainly NOT the solution we wanted, but it seems inevitable. Just as soon as we start getting ourselves paid off from past debts- mostly incurred long before we were married, or even met, it really hurts to have to put ourselves back into a situation where we owe again. But the equity loan seems to be the only real solution, and so we are preparing ourselves to simply suck it up and get it done.

I do realize that that sounds like a pretty petty little whine up there. I know folks that are struggling just to feed their families, find work, and so I feel a bit guilty whining because I have a house to take care of, and have the inconvenience of an ancient dryer that takes forever to dry anything and sucks electricity like there's no tomorrow, and running water that stinks and leaves orange stains in the toilets and showers.

It ain't all bad, though. I have a lot to be thankful for. Family I love, a job that often leaves me in a bad mood, but more often than not, leaves me feeling like I'm part of something good. I have food in my fridge, an amazing little boy, and a couple of stupid dogs that keep my feet warm. So, for the next few weeks I'm going to try and focus on things I'm thankful for on a daily basis, instead of the things I'm worried over, depressed about, or have no control over.

Today I'm thankful for my friends, both here on the net, and those in my 'real life'. They love me even though I'm a goof, they give me encouragement, and they aren't afraid to give me a reality check every now and then. Above all else, I find value in knowing that I can spend my time in good company.

What are you thankful for today?

Going around

Guess who's got the chills, aches, and a sore throat today?

Yup.

Entirely my fault. But who can resist kissing and snuggling with a sick baby boy?

But we all know that moms don't have time to get sick, so I'm just going to press on and pretend all is right with the world.

And on an entirely different subject... tomorrow's election day. Go out and vote.

That's about as political as I'll get here, I promise. And to be honest, I'm not sure how I'm going to manage to do it. Right now I'm working on just finding someone to watch my kid so I can go to work. J's school is a polling place, and so there's no school for him tomorrow.

The grandparents will watch him, but they want to go vote, too. And, while Abuelo drives (god help us!) he refuses to drive with J in the car. He's just too nervous. And while that's absolutely fine with me-- him not driving around with my son in tow all the time, it makes it kind of difficult when I'm scheduled to work every single hour that the polling locations are open. So, while I could be late back from lunch and drive all the way across town in order to vote myself, I can't seem to find a way around the grandparents voting unless he'll simply man up and realize that he CAN drive the 2 miles it takes to get to city hall with a chatty 4-year-old in the back seat. Why does EVERYTHING have to be so difficult. I mean seriously... these are the silly things I have to deal with on a daily basis.

And now I'm going to go cast on a pair of socks, or a scarf, or some other fairly mindless and small project in preparation for my long lunch hour of standing in line.

NaBloPoMo...

No. No. No.

I briefly entertained the idea of joining NaBloPoMo, but realized that it would just be a recipe for failure. I know darn well that I could manage to press the publish button on a daily basis, but the content of the posts would be worthless. So why bother?

I will, however, take the opportunity to try and blog more frequently than I have in the past several months. It's just that most of the crafty stuff that I'm working on is destined to be a gift for someone, which makes talking about it tough. And really, there isn't much other interesting stuff to talk about.

J's feeling better today. He tells me his nose isn't snotty anymore, but it's 'crumbly'. He can't seem to keep his little fingers out of it. But I suppose I'll take a crumbly nose over a runny one any day.

And there you have it. Post number one for November. :)