If it's Friday, it must be fish

I spend a lot of my time being grateful. I'm grateful for my job, for the little house we rent, for Delilah the dwarf hamster, for the food I cook and eat. I'm grateful that I know how to knit and can entertain myself and make useful stuff all at the same time. I'm grateful that I can watch House on the Internet and I'm grateful for the sweetly wonderful son I'm raising.

What I am most grateful for, though, is my husband.

He is a good and gentle man who has suffered greatly over the past year and has more suffering ahead. He does the things that are hardest for him in order to make life a little easier for the people he loves, even if some of them are the ones causing his suffering. He bears the weight of all of us on his shoulders.

I thank God for putting him in my life every single day. He is my first thought in the morning, my last thought at night, and the star of my dreams. I love him with an amazingly strong and steady love, a love that can withstand much and stand there smiling through it all. A love that, basically, matches him.

This morning I was eating bacon and Belgian waffles with the boy and thinking about how my wonderful man can't have bacon. He's not allowed to have any pork products at all. And he's a fan of pork, let me tell you! Anyway, before I ate, I thanked God for providing, as I always do, and then I just sat for a moment and thought about that dear, sweet man and how much I wish I could take him a piece of bacon or a pork chop or a ham sandwich.

I tell him all the time, on the phone and in my letters, how very much I love him and how very proud I am that he is mine, but I don't know that it helps him a whole lot. I guess my only real option is to pray that he understands the boundless depths of my gratitude. I had no idea when I met him what sort of troubles we would go through together. I had no idea when I married him that I was actually marrying Job. I hope someday I get the chance to show him how amazing I really think he is.



Picture from HowStuffWorks

PSA - Knitting needles are sharp

I laughed with a great, sarcastic HA at the idea that you can't take knitting needles on an airplane* but I'm not laughing anymore.

Allow me to set the scene. I'm sitting on the sofa, legs curled under me. My knitting bag is on the floor in front of me, next to the coffee table. I am crocheting a slipper for the Boy.

I call the Boy over for a trial fitting. He's being silly (that's his job) and I'm laughing at his silliness. I uncurl my legs and am in the process of swinging them down to the floor so he can put a foot on my lap and I can test fit and...

ARGH!!!!

Cankle fat collides with size seven steel pointed knitting needle and.....

ARGH!!!!!

I kid you not - I felt it popping through my skin - sort of the same feeling you get when you're 14 and get your best friend to pierce your not-quite-numb ear with her mom's sewing needle. Only not so loud. And MUCH larger.

OW OW OW OW OW OW

The Boy runs to the bathroom and returns with a band-aid. There's almost no blood but he thinks a band-aid makes you feel better.

I'm pretty sure it's gonna hurt forever. Or at least for a really long time. Maybe months, even. And I can't remember the last time I had a tetanus shot. Do I need one? I don't know. I looked up "puncture wound knitting needle" on WebMD and they didn't tell me anything I needed to know.

I have discovered that there is a very good purpose for cankles - that odd fat pad on the side of my ankle totally kept that knitting needle from going all the way through and coming out the other side.

I imagine you're wondering what I learned from this experience. Here it is, in bullet format:

• Knitting needles CAN be used as weapons
• Fat DOES have nerve endings
• 15 year-old boys are NOT good nurses

*I'm thinking this is no longer true, but I might email the NTSB and tell them that they need to say NO to knitting needles because trust me - they could kill a b*tch.

Image from Wikimedia

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

The Very Lovely Laura sent me a link to an article today - 7 Thoughts that are Bad For You. I have at least two, maybe two and a half. Which, according to the article, is going to shorten my lifespan so much that time is actually going to have to go backward so I can die before I was born.

That, my friends, is exaggeration. I'm not sure if it classifies as a literary device but I'm using it as one.

I think that my life is returning to its normal, somewhat even keel. Finally. I miss my husband with an achingly strong emotional need, but I don't cry daily. I'm now able to worry about normal things again, like whether I can make it to payday without overdrawing my checking account and which executive at PNC bank is putting his kid through college on my overdraft fees. But things are coming together.

I've discovered and rediscovered some amazing things that are helping me to sail more smoothly. Some of them everyone can use. Some, I'm sorry but I'm keeping to myself. They are (in no particular order):

• ARAC (Atlanta Road Alliance Church), complete with Millie and Jim (love them!)
• Praying. It works, people.
• Exercising. I'm following the (free) No Excuses Workout plan with some mods - like the day I rake leaves or rearrange furniture, I don't "exercise".
• Menu planning - it gives me some control and helps get a handle on my food budget
• How ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIC my parents are. Oh yeah. Amazing. I can never thank them enough for helping me get my feet back under me. I'm standing now, and can see that very soon I'll be walking again. And walking is just a teensy bit away from running, right?
• Flylady. Love LOVE Flylady. All of you people need to love her too. And she'll love you back.
• Writing. I don't write as much here as I once did, but I write reams to my sweet man. Mail is pretty much the only positive thing in his life. I will always feel a great deal of responsibility for where he is and what has happened, which means that I'm as happy as a pig in poo to do anything I can to make things a little easier for him.

I've always been a list-maker, a planner. Sometimes I actually follow through on my lists but more often than not I move past needing a particular list, or circumstances null and void it. But just the same, here's a list of things I want to do before the end of the year:

• Finish two blankets - both gifts
• Make about a dozen dishcloths and several washable Swiffer dusters (gifts)
• Make some NOT TELLING BECAUSE LAURA READS THIS (also gifts)
• Make some pretty knitted ornaments (using cheap-o plastic Christmas balls and thrifted sweaters)
• Decorate our tiny house
• Finish paying my gas deposit
• Get the best Christmas gifts ever for the most wonderful man and boy ever in the history of the universe
• Make my Flylady control journal

And the things I'd like to get done this winter (everything above, plus....):

• Outline my story for a book. I know how it starts - with the end in a foreshadow. I know the story - I lived it. Writing it out will help to heal the wounds that are still there. And at least the truth will be known, somewhere.
• Fix or replace the attic light fixture that my sweet boy broke with his big ole butt
• Pay for Penn Foster
• Organize the attic and get rid of approximately 2 metric tons of junk
• Go through all of my WIPs and either frog them back to stash or schedule time to work on them
• Finish Mommom's quilt
• Save money to fly the boy and I out west to meet the missing piece of our little family

Normally, I would just make my lists and leave it at that. But Flylady is teaching me a new level of organization and at some point - probably tomorrow - all of those things are going onto a calendar. I just need a calendar to put them on!


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Title comes from the song "Signs" by Five Man Electrical Band
Image from the B-Protected website

Still hanging with the elephants

When I was a teenager, my parents had to rent a house month-to-month for a few months, between the end of the lease at the house we had been renting and when they went to closing on the house they were buying. The house they got on a month-to-month was a crazy little thing. It had a finished attic that had been divided into two rooms - one normal-sized and one HUGE - and a 3/4 bath. My younger brother and I shared the upstairs.

That was my favorite room EVER. It had gable windows, which totally made me feel like a princess in a tower. The room was something like 2/3 or more the length of the house, and the entire width. Huge. And it had this absolutely beautiful hardwood floor. Beautiful, shiny, and smooth.

So my baby brother and I decided to try sliding. We put on his sweat socks. We put our backs to the bathroom door and ran across the little hallway, stopping when we hit the floor in my bedroom. We slid a little, but it just wasn't as satisfactory as we were hoping.

Enter Pledge, stage left.

Yeah, I polished the wood floor. With furniture polish. And then guess what? We could slide the entire length of the room! It was amazing! It was fun! It elicited yells from my mother in the kitchen, which was under the far end of my room - the spot where we would fall into giggling heaps. I thought I had invented The Best Game Ever.

Until the next morning when I got up to get ready for school and fell ass-over-teacups approximately half a second after my feet touched the floor. And Mom found out what I'd done and made me scrub the whole floor with hot water only and a stiff brush. That little job took me many afternoons and most of Saturday morning.

But I can still remember the way it felt to sliiiiiide, unfettered, loose. I imagine it was very close to flying. And I don't remember what it felt like to scrub. So I'm thinking it all came out okay in the end.

I ignores elephants

I wonder how many people, like me, ignore the elephant in the room? It's a skill, people, to not mention the Great Big Beast that's hanging out there, eating all your peanuts, and making poos bigger than end tables (I'm just assuming that last bit - I don't remember ever seeing elephant poo).

To that end, I thought I'd talk about My New Job! It's quite exciting to have a New Job! I'm at the same place, I'm just going to be doing something a bit different. I'm moving from a SQL DBA (that's a database administrator) position to a tech position on the Tools & Automation team. This is a new team, part of the big, hairy Service One (our new helpdesk group). We're going to install, configure, update, and manage enterprise level monitoring tools for servers, applications, and network devices/appliances. The job is going to involve lots of scripting (YAY), lots of learning (YIPPEE), and lots of being on a brand-new team (HOORAY).

I signed the paperwork yesterday and my official first day is November 11. If you're all up on your calendar and stuff, you'll notice that November 11 is a Wednesday. I know, gasp, does the new job herald the end of Work From Home Wednesday? Honestly I don't know. I'll definitely work THAT Wednesday in the office and then go from there. Maybe WFH will move to Monday. That would be cool.

And THAT, folks, is how you ignore the elephant in the room!

Best. Song. Ever.

Do not attempt to talk me out of this one people. I don't care who you are or when you grew up, I KNOW, with a deeply abiding certainty, that you've heard Squeeze at least several times in your life. The song Tempted is on every single sound cover rotation in every single store and restaurant in the US.

But, my chickies, Tempted might be the most-played Squeeze song in the US but it is not The. Best. Song. Ever. It's another Squeeze song, off the same album. That song: Black Coffee In Bed.

There have been whole hours of my life dedicated to playing this song over and over and over. And over. Singing along at the top of my lungs. When I hear it, I'm driving in the springtime with the windows open and my hair flying in the wind, with a cup of Starbucks near at hand and a Virginia Slim poking out from between the first two fingers of my left hand. Or I'm laying on top of the covers in my pajamas, next to my sweet hubby, while we both read whatever we're reading at the time and my favorite music plays in the background (I like this one better because every few pages we can take a reading break and have a snuggle).

Check out these wonderfully poetic lyrics:

There's a stain on my notebook
Where your coffee cup was
And there's ash in the pages
Now I've got myself lost
I was writing to tell you
That my feelings tonight
Are a stain on my notebook
That rings your goodbye

(chorus)
Now she's gone
And I'm back on the beat
A stain on my notebook
Says nothing to me
Now she's gone
And I'm out with a friend
With lips full of passion
And coffee in bed

With the way that you left me
I can hardly contain
The hurt and the anger
And the joy of the pain
Now knowing I am single
There'll be fire in my eyes
And a stain on my notebook
For a new love tonight

(repeat chorus)

From the lips without passion
To the lips with a kiss
There's nothing of your love
That I'll ever miss
The stain on my notebook
Is all that's left
Of the memory of late nights
And coffee in bed

(repeat chorus)

And... we're golden!

Yes, yes, YES! Good news, at last.

It's been a terrible year, people. Terrible. And I have more rough time coming on the home front, with the separation from my sweet hubby.

But things are looking up!

Good news is raining down on me like June sunshine. It looks like my new job is actually going to happen! I kept thinking I needed something big and good in my life, and this just might be it!

It's still not 100% official but it's as close to 100% as it could be without signatures on the dotted lines. And I'm so happy! My current boss and new boss are working together on a transition plan that is going to be good for me. This is the only part of the process that worried me, honestly, and they've decided to pull on their big-boy pants and just handle things.

I'm going to convince myself that this is going to be a watershed for me, and for my life. I read in a book (I think it was "After Lucy") that everyone has a set amount of luck, and our good luck balances out our bad luck. So if you live an average, normal life and win the lottery, you can expect a load of crap following the win because the luck balances out. I'm hoping that this theory will prove to be true in my own life and that the absolutely horrid year we're finishing will get turned around and balanced out by wonderfulness in the year to come.

But really, right now I'm not worried about the year. I'm over the moon about my new job! Right now, I'm golden!