Friday, October 31, 2008


Happy Halloween

Monday, October 20, 2008

Yeah Baby





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Liberal Feminist
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Helping women with "health" and other issues for decades







Thanks to John McCain, I now have a name for it.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Catching Up with a Ramble

I'm down right giddy about going back to Arkansas next week to go to War Eagle craft fair with my bestest bud, Angie, and to my grandmother's 90th birthday. She's an amazing woman and I'm looking forward to seeing some family members I haven't seen in a very long time. Well, actually, I think I'm looking forward to seeing the family members. See, when my folks split and my dad remarried, his new family became the ones who went to all kind of stuff. My grandmother and a couple of aunts and uncles made an effort to make us still feel like we were part of the family, but there's only so much they could do. So, I probably won't even recognize a lot of these people. OK, so that's probably more info than you needed. But I'm taking Cosette, so they'll love her. As we all know, love my dog, love me. That's the rule.

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I am the world's worst doggie mom. While we were in Virginia, I was constantly trying to keep fleas off of Cosette. I didn't take extra Frontline with me because I figured I could get some there, but the vets I went to wouldn't sell me any because she wasn't their client. I ended up getting Advantage or something like that which seemed to help. Once I got home and got her back on Frontline she's been fine. But too little too late. Because she would eat the fleas she took off herself, she has worms and had her first big ol' pill and half today and will have to have more in 3 weeks. In the meantime, I have to be diligent about picking up after her (which is going to be really gross, the doc warned, telling me it will be "wormy" Ew). But she'll be fine. I'm just kicking myself for not taking the Frontline with us.

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I hate not knowing the future. I'm not always that way, but it's just kind of stressful right now. We don't know if we're going to stay here or have to move. There's a good chance he could go on remote (probably to some place dusty) and could be gone any where from 6 months to a year. There's just as good a chance he could be extended here and be able to retire. There's also a good chance we could move somewhere for another assignment and just love it. All I do know for sure is that if we have to put the house on the market any time soon, there's a good chance we won't be happy with how long it will take to sell it nor how much we will actually make on it.

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The weather has been gorgeous around here! Just gorgeous. Thank goodness we are having a lovely fall.

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We have the most stubborn dog in the world. For over an hour, she sat by the pantry door in hopes of getting a treat. I stayed on the couch, ignoring her because she has gained quite a bit of weight and we are trying to get her back down to a healthier size. Every now and then, I'd hear a soft little whine or sigh, just to let me know that she was still there.


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I think the press should start referring to the "undecided" voters as who they really are: the "it's none of your damn business who I'm voting for so stop asking" voters.

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We're having a pumpkin-carving party a week from Saturday, and I can't wait. I'm in that fun planning stage again where I'm looking through my tried-and-true recipes and magazines for new ones. But I have to make jalapeno poppers and the chocolate trifle because requests have come in. Once I've decided, I will post the menu and put up some recipes. This blog isn't all about the dog, you know. *thinks about it* OK, so it's a lot about the dog and I will include a picture or two of her, but she's just so darn cute!

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Did I tell you guys that I found a therapist to talk to? Well, I did, and it's getting pretty hard now. She says I need to stop pushing people away and withdrawing from society and being so overprotective of myself and my feelings all out of fear of being hurt. So, my question is when do I get to start blaming other people for my anxieties because so far, it all seems to be on me. I would choose a therapist who won't let me be the victim, or at least she did at first then turn it all around and said, "but you've let yourself stay in this cycle and we need to work on breaking it." Well hell. If I knew it was going to be this much work, I would have just continued my program of self-healing by buying another carton of Ben and Jerry's and watching old movies, even though the only progress that would have made would have been on my waist line.

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Did you know Playboy makes women's Halloween costumes? There's something so right about that. Apparently, they're the best quality of the other ready-made costumes in the store. I'm leaning towards Naughty Nurse because the French Maid makes me think of cleaning and the Cheerleader is just a little "ew" for my taste.

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I know there was something else I was going to tell you, but now I can't remember what it was. But believe me, it was eloquent, witty, and brilliant. So, I'll just end on pictures of Cosette. She gave me her approval on my grandmother's afghan that I knitted.



Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Follow Through

How is it that I can feel restless and tired at the same time? How can I feel like I could sleep for hours, yet my head is spinning with ideas for projects and my fingers are itching to do something?

The problem is that I’m a great planner, but I’m usually not so good at follow through. I love planning. I love the excitement of those early moments in an idea. The gleam of “what if I . . .” completely redirects my attention me from whatever I’m doing.

For example, I decided that I needed a knitting journal. I have a spiral journal/notebook thingie (with sheep on it, of course) where I keep notes on what I’m working on. OK, that makes me sound sooooo much more organized than I am. Let’s try that again: When I think about it, I write down notes about what I’m working on, such as what yarn, what size needle, and any changes I’ve made to the pattern. But the notebook is haphazardly used, writing something down when I think about it and I have trouble finding the info later. So, I decided I needed a little more organization.

I thought about making my own first, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to look around the internet to see if there was already the perfect one out there. There were knitting journals, but back when I was looking at them, there weren’t that many and they all lacked a little something. They all had the basic info describing the project on a page, but somehow they just weren’t user-friendly enough for me, mostly I couldn’t take the pages out to categorize the projects so they’d be easier to find. Time to make my own!

I got a pretty binder and sat down with Excel to create my project pages. I tried different ways with different information, but finally ended up with something I liked. I made a lot of copies of blank journal pages, put them in the binder, then put the binder on the shelf of my knitting bookcase. And there it sat for I’m embarrassed to say how long. I did fill out a few pages, but for the most part, I didn’t want to take the time out of working on my projects to actually write all that stuff down. But when I got back from Virginia, I decided I needed to get out that journal and update it. I printed out photos of finished projects to tape to the pages, then filled out as much information as I could remember. While doing this, I realized there was a little more organizing to do: putting in dividers for projects in progress and projects completed. Then there was the growing list of projects I want to do. I decided I needed a page (or 20) so that I could list possible projects and where I can find the patterns and what yarn I would need. I even went through my magazines and tore out patterns, put them in protector pages, and I now have a “Wanna Do Projects” binder.



I’m so pleased with myself! Sure, I have new magazines I need to go through and patterns that I downloaded are still on my computer, but I have a good basis to build on. I do wish I was a better wiz with a computer and design programs because there are some things I would change about those journal pages, make them prettier. Also, right now, the binder is for 8 ½ x 11 paper, but I’d really like a smaller sized one, such as a 5 x 8 so it would be easier to carry around. It would come in really handy at the yarn shop to just pull my journal out of my purse and double check how much and what weight of yarn I need for that hiking scarf. I have a binder that size, but I can’t figure out an easy way to type up my journal pages on paper that size. Oh well, it’s nice having all the room on a page for my notes an pictures.

A quick Google search shows there are lots of journals out there now, even a woman who offers on her blog pdfs of her journal pages to download; they look a lot like mine, but are much prettier. Plus, there’s Ravelry, where you can keep an online journal and talk about your projects, even keep an inventory of your stash. I could be uber-cyber-organized, but I really like pen and paper, so I think I’ll stick to what I have.

Of course, there are more magazines coming in and several yarn companies offer free patterns for downloads, which are on my computer and need to be printed out. It seems like organization is an ongoing chore, I mean task. I shouldn’t think of it as a chore. OK, it’s a chore. It was fun to think about it and play around with the idea of having the journal, but now it’s a lot of work to keep that sucker updated. But in the end, it’s worth it.

It’s nice to have an idea and actually follow through with it for a change. Hmmm. Maybe this a brand new start to a whole new me! A disciplined, organized, and projects-completed kind of person. A person who finishes her projects instead of letting UFOs pile up around her. A person who keeps . . . hold on a minute. I just got an email from Knitting Daily. Maybe there’s a new pattern! Sometimes they have articles about spinning and weaving. You know, I’d love to learn how to spin. That would be so cool, wouldn’t it? Of course, I’d need to learn about the different types of yarns and understand better what “ply” means, but it would be so interesting. Then I could knit with the yarn I spin! Oooooh, oooooh, then I could start dying my own yarn! Yeah, I could try my hand at my own hand-painted yarns. Where’s my color wheel? What colors go well with sage green?

Sorry, I gotta go! You guys can let yourselves out, right? I got things to think about!!



P.S. Clip art from fotosearch.com