Next Up - February!

I saw this earlier and it seemed appropriate for this almost-past January. I just hope I'm not tempting fate posting it when there are still approximately 12 hours of January remaining ...

Generally speaking, I don't have a problem with January and/or February, like a lot of people do. And so far in 2025, there were things to like in January. Here in Philadelphia, we got some real winter weather - nothing like the wimpy winters we've had for the past few years. And as you know, I'm one of the weirdos who loves winter, so I am pleased about that. And for the most part, we had a decent month in our family, with lots of cozy time to be together. The Eagles made it to the Super Bowl, which made up for Notre Dame losing to Ohio State in the college championship game (I have a loooong history of not liking Ohio State. And I should move on, but I just can't. So sue me. Anyway.) I finished a pair of Christmas-themed socks, so come December they will be waiting for me, which will make me all kinds of happy.

But ugh, January has been a rough one this year. I mean, not just for me but for most of the people in the world. Which is one thing, but usually when the world is falling apart, I can take comfort in my own life and universe being OK. This time around, not so much. It's been hard to keep going forward, but the one good thing is that every day I've gotten out of bed, washed up, and gotten dressed. Some days - as I mentioned in a previous post - I've even accomplished some small things, which were pleasing to me. 

The past few days, I've had to try really really hard to think of things that are good and worthwhile. My "plan" for February is to see if I can organize some of my thoughts and make some lists. Because I do love a list, and I'm thinking having something to even just look at might be at least a tiny bit motivating. 

I mean, this is a GREAT example, and has inspired me:

Anyway, let's move along and hope that February will give us some good or fun things to talk about. 

I hope that your January has not been completely awful. February starts tomorrow, AND it's a weekend, so that already gives us two things to be happy about, a la the list above, right? 😏

Take care, and next week I'll try to share some knitting with you. I think I'm ready to pick up the needles at least a little bit, which is promising. Hang in there, and I hope you can find one thing to make you smile.

Recent Things

Hello all! I hope that 2024 has treated you well so far. Our New Year's Eve was quiet. As usual, The Tim decided to "take a nap" which meant he was just gone for the night. The problem is, he was in the room where we watch TV and once he is asleep, there is no way to wake him up. So my choice was to sit and listen to him snore while sitting in the semi-darkness (because of course he turned down the lights), or go downstairs, read for a while, and then watch the ball drop on my own. Last year this same choice presented itself, and instead of just removing myself and doing my thing, I sulked and let my feelings be hurt. This year I chose the going downstairs option and enjoyed it quite a bit. I also felt like I had a small moment of personal growth by making that choice. 

In any case, I've been enjoying the season overall. I forgot to tell you that I made gingerbread muffins the weekend before Christmas. I have a yellowed photocopy from a cookbook of colonial-era recipes that I borrowed long ago from a library. It is supposedly the recipe for Martha Washington's gingerbread, but I can't swear to that. Anyway, I've always made muffins instead of just the gingerbread, and this is my most favorite recipe. It's not hard, but there are a few steps you have to do ahead of time.

For reasons I'll never quite understand, I sometimes get 16 muffins and on occasion get 24. I always use the same muffin pans, so go figure. But the most important thing is that they are full of YUM!

During November and December, I didn't keep up with my exercise routine as well as I had been doing (though my companions did better than I did); I didn't abandon it altogether, thank goodness, but I skipped it more than I should have. So in the spirit of "Start as you plan to continue," I took a nice long walk in the morning on New Year's Day. It was pretty cool but so sunny and bright that it was especially nice. I took a route I hadn't taken for a while, and got to say hello to these two:

It was pretty quiet everywhere, so I decided they were quite happy to see me, and wished them a Happy New Year. 😊

Yesterday I spent about an hour out of the house to make various stops around town. In an unusual state of affairs, I actually was able to accomplish and find everything I'd gone out to get! Usually, I am able to be successful with some things but not others, so I guess the planets were aligned accurately for me ...

In the afternoon, I cast on my first new project of the year:

This is the start of a sweater. In the first season of the show "Only Murders In The Building," Selena Gomez was wearing a beautiful, bulky weight, light blue funnel neck sweater and I became obsessed with finding a pattern for one. I couldn't find the exact thing, but found a pattern that I liked well enough to try. Then in December, Knit Picks had a sale and I bought some bulky yarn to make said sweater. The yarn is much more of a light blue than the photo shows, and so far I'm enjoying the knit. Though I'm not generally a big fan of bulky knits. But this particular thing just struck me, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. So hopefully this will turn out well enough that I'll be pleased with it. The good thing is that since I don't usually use this weight of yarn, I am pleasantly surprised with how quickly you make progress in your knitting!

Today is a laundry day, organize some things day, take a walk day, and whatever else I decide fits into it day. Tomorrow I have my mammogram first thing, which brings me to my annual question of why don't they only charge me 50% of the cost since I have only one breast to scan? I mean, I know the answer in the grand scheme of things, but it still always seems a little unfair. But since that is first thing in the morning, and will hopefully go by without incident, I'll have the rest of the day to decide what else I want/need/feel like doing.

What have you been up to this week? I'm enjoying myself, and am reminded again of how much I enjoy being at home with the kit kats and The Tim when he is here, even if I'm doing laundry or something else unexciting. Let's hope that continues in 2024 as well.

On a Friday

I hope that in the future they invent a small golden light that follows you everywhere and when something is about to end, it shines brightly so you know it's about to end.

And if you're never going to see someone again, it'll shine brightly and both of you can be polite and say, "It was nice to have you in my life while I did, good luck with everything that happens after now."

And maybe if you're never going to eat at the same restaurant again, it'll shine and you can order everything off the menu you've never tried. Maybe, if someone is about to buy your car, the light will shine and you can take it for one last spin. Maybe, if you're with a group of friends who will never be together again, all your lights will shine at the same time and you'll know, and then you can hold each other and whisper, "This was good. Oh my God, this was so good."

-- Iain Thomas, The Light That Shines When Things End

*****

Have a lovely weekend.

Friday Catch Up

Hello all! I didn't mean to take such an extended "break" from blogging, but that's what happened. The past few weeks have had a lot of little things happening that just seemed to pile on and keep me from doing very much at all. Does that ever happen to you? Every once in a while that happens to me and a lot gets lost in the shuffle. 

Oh well. 

Happy March, by the way. 😉

I somewhat managed to keep up with others' activities, but usually more as a lurker than a commenter. Sounds like all of you are busy, and some of you are really making some pretty things!  I'm glad that - at least in general - things are well with all of you.

There's been a lot of lounging going on around here:

These guys are funny. Pip and Milo have of course been buds for a long time, and though Pip thinks Alfie is the best, Milo the Koodle seems to change his opinion hour by hour. So the fact that they were all on the guest bedroom bed together for most of an afternoon without incident is pretty amazing.

There's also been some ... deconstructing going on.

This is our second floor (main) bathroom after the sinks and vanity were torn out earlier this week. Fortunately, we have a guest bathroom on the third floor that has a functioning sink! 

The bathroom pictured has had a cheapo, unattractive vanity and two sinks since we moved in. It's something we've always wanted to change, but while we were paying our mortgage, we never had enough extra money. About a year ago, one of the sinks developed a BIG leak, and we turned off the water pipes leading to it, and just used the other sink. According to The Tim anytime we would discuss it, we were going to replace things "soon." 

Now you can guess where this is heading. At the end of last week, the remaining sink developed a big drip. The Tim tried to fix it, but the faucet fixture broke apart due to age. So he bought a new fixture, and found a plumber who could come on fairly short notice. Except that when the plumber pulled out the old fixture, it had been jerry-rigged into the sink by the house's former owners, and the new fixture couldn't go into it. So at a minimum, we would have to have the sink torn out and replaced. After some back and forth, The Tim finally agreed that it was just easier to get rid of all of it and get a new vanity, new fixtures, new floor, etc. 

Which of course happened right in the throes of too much expensive dental work happening in my mouth which our dental insurance barely helps to cover. Because as the saying goes, when it rains it pours.

I do have to say though that although it's annoying, this is typical of how things go. The Tim will quickly acknowledge a problem, I will bug him about it consistently, and then a crisis comes along and things finally get resolved. Sigh.

But hopefully soon we'll have a fully-functioning main bathroom and then we can go to the next disaster (and at the current time, there are two waiting to happen. Stay tuned!).

Yesterday when I was at a therapy appointment, I took a photo of this orchid in the office that had bloomed:

I am not an orchid expert by any means, and have never even attempted to keep one alive. The office there has A LOT of orchids in a big window that gets nice amounts of light, but this is the only one like this - look at the little openings in the one section. I think they are not only pretty, but really fascinating. I posted this photo on Instagram, and Dee identified it as a phalaenopsis orchid, and said it's a typical thing. (It's nice to have a friend who knows about orchids, you know?) She said she has a few mini versions that are blooming, and they are so small, you can hardly see the openings. So amazing, right??

And those are the big things that I wanted to catch up with you about in this post. I have some knitting to show in the next few posts, one that has been in progress for a while, and one FO that just started and finished in record time (well, for me at least). Tomorrow we are celebrating Milo the Koodle's birthday, and Sunday is my weekend shift at the yarn store. The weather is supposed to be messy over the next few days, so it will be good knitting and reading time.

I hope you have a good weekend, whatever is happening at your house. I'll see you next week.

Then July Happened ...

When we last left my life saga, we had reached the end of June, the end of my full-time job of 12 1/2 years, and the end of guaranteed income and health insuruance. Well, I had signed up for Social Security and Medicare, but had not yet heard that they were active. So ... only kinda/sorta worried about income and health care. 

To end June in the BEST possible way <insert sarcasm>, The Tim woke up on June 30 not feeling well. You may or may not remember that The Tim is seldom sick - he hardly ever even gets a cold. He took and Covid test, and of course it was positive. Which, if you think about it, was really the perfect way for June to end. Anyway, we had avoided catching it for over 2 years, so I guess we had a good run. He called his doctor, and was given Paxlovid, so between that and being vaccinated and boosted, he was on his way to recovering.

We hadn't made any specific Plans for July 4, so we didn't have to cancel anything, but we usually have our own little picnic, and I figured I'd just wait and see how he felt before getting anything to have or fixing any food ahead of time (i.e., potato salad). 

Fortunately for him, he had milder symptoms - a sore throat, some fatigue, and congestion. And the Paxlovid made a huge difference.

You are likely guessing the inevitable at this point, and dear reader, you would be correct. In spite of my best efforts to avoid interacting with The Tim, our house is only so big. So on the morning of July 4, I woke up feeling AWFUL. And of course, tested positive for Covid. I do not recommend it as a way to celebrate a long weekend holiday - 0 out of 10 stars.

My doctor prescribed Paxlovid as well, and as is my kind of luck with illness, my symptoms were a lot worse. I was pretty miserable for a couple of weeks, though again, the medication and being vaccinated and boosted made a huge difference. I still have some congestion and a Covid cough, and fortunately my constant fatigue is nearly gone. But the coughing, aches, headache, earache, and overall difficulty breathing made me thankful that if I had to end up getting Covid, it was now instead of in the early parts of it. The suffering of those people was unbearable to think about.

So, we both recovered, and then I got to spend the next week or so fighting with my former employer. I received the paycheck that covered my leftover vacation days, except it only covered half of them. When I called to question it, I was told that I had more vacation left than it was the policy to pay for - I mentioned that it was not on purpose, it was because we were not allowed to take any vacation when the number of staff was so low. But alas, I did not prevail. And yes, I could have made an issue of it, but I was just done (which is I'm guessing what they imagine will happen). I "officially" closed that chapter, with no regrets.

In the third week of July, the woman who is one of the owners of the LYS near my house - Loop - contacted me to see if I might be interested in working a couple of days a week in the shop.  Um .... YES! At this point, I knew that I would be getting Social Security starting in the middle of August, but I had still been looking for a part-time job. The LYS job is currently two days a week - Tuesdays and Sundays, and the pay isn't really great - but you know what? After looking for a part-time job for over a year, I'm thrilled to have *anything* at this point. Plus, my commute to work on those two days is two blocks!!! The people are nice, and the yarn is pretty, and if nothing else ever happens, I have this job, and who knows, maybe I'll be able to add on another day at some point.

So, let's review:

Beginning of July = ICK

Middle of July = Better, but still questionable

End of July = YAY!!!

Finances will still be iffy for a while, until we get used to all of the adjustments that need to happen, and my Medicare is still being processed, but progress is being made, and I think it will be OK in the end. Because I really believe that, but also because we have to make it OK in the end, right?? 😊

The Story of the End of June

As promised, I am going to tell you about the first part of what was going on with me at the end of June 2022. I promise to try and keep it as short as possible, with as little detail as necessary. Even so, it's likely to be a long post, and not of interest to a lot of people, so feel free to move along, I won't be upset. 😉

Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time has heard me talk about the awful situation that was my workplace. Particularly in the past couple of years - and not really related to the pandemic - when the CEO of the place decided that until a "real" director was hired, he should be our supervisor. This was awful for many reasons. But in summary: 1) he knows absolutely nothing about libraries and archives; 2) he doesn't care that he doesn't know; 3) he is to put it mildly, incredibly narcissistic; 4) out of the four of us, he absolutely had one person as his favorite who could do no wrong, somewhat pleasantly tolerated the Reference Librarian, (who was part-time at the moment), didn't like the Archivist, and really and truly hated me. At one point, his favorite was promoted to the title Special Collections Librarian, which was disturbing for several reasons, among them that she does not have a library degree or background, and that in the library profession, Special Collections Librarian is a very rarefied, difficult-to-obtain position. And seldom is/was anyone at the place every promoted anyway.

Various things did or did not happen, and the morale - which didn't really exist in the first place - plummeted even lower. In early November 2021, the Reference Librarian resigned, partly due to child care problems, but also due to the supervisor, the treatment of most of us, and because it was no longer worth her emotional investment. At the end of December 2021, the Archivist resigned, due to the situation in our workplace and due to our supervisor. She was fortunate to find another job that she was more than happy to have.

So, two of us were left. And the supervisor decided to start the search for a director - excuse me, an "Executive Director." The first thing he did that we had all agreed was an important part of the job requirement was to take out the requirement that the person have a master's or doctoral degree in library work - according to him, this would mean we would have the chance to get "a scholar" in the position. So he found someone - a lovely man actually - who had a Ph.D. in the history of science and had come from a position at a planetarium.

The new Executive Director decided to make it a priority to hire a Reference Librarian. But he and the other person left in the department did not want to require a library degree, and the other person - the favorite - pretty much wrote the job description and said she would train the person. Train them to do the stuff she was originally hired to do and to help with, but that she doesn't like doing, so she could focus on the parts of the job she likes.

I was already having serious mental health problems at this point, but that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Since before last Christmas, I've applied for 80+ part-time and full-time jobs with no response, except for two interviews that went nowhere. But the situation described above made it just impossible for me to stay at my workplace. Without another job lined up, I gave my notice and said my last day would be June 30.  

Prior to that, I had applied for Social Security benefits, and Medicare, so that was something. But the situation would still not be ideal.

I was busy cleaning up projects and creating documents to let my successor (if there would be one) have at least a rough idea of where I left off on things I'd been doing. Even though I was leaving, I had every intention to leave things in a good place.

Then I arrived at work on Thursday, June 23 - one exact week before my last day. There was an e-mail from HR alerting me to an "emergency" meeting at 9 a.m. So I signed on to Zoom, and learned that I was being let go that day. According to the HR person, someone had been "researching" about me online, and came across "a post on my personal blog" that contained this sentence: 

"I ask myself, could these things not have at least been spread out over several weeks, so that my desire to stab someone would not be as strong as it is right now?"

(It was a post about a week when everything annoying seemed to be happening all at once.)

Anyway, I was being sent home that day because that particular sentence was seen as - and I quote - "An implied threat of physical violence to others."

I asked the HR person if a) this didn't sound a bit like stalking, and b) if she really believed I was dangerous, and though she gave vague answers, she said it didn't matter what she thought, it was because if others worried for their safety, I had to be let go. She said that I was not being fired, and would be paid through my original last day, but I had to leave the building as soon as I collected all of my stuff and not come back, or try to come back into the building.

So, I did just that. I wasn't able to finish things I'd begun, or leave instructions, as I had planned, but I had to leave, so I did. I spent the week until my original resignation date lying low and trying to deal with HR about my final paycheck, when benefits would end, etc. - the usual things that I would have worked on even if I'd been at work for that last week.

My very last act was to send an e-mail I had been planning to send anyway to all of my colleagues, and had already pretty much finished. I tweaked it according to the situation, and right before I shut down my work computer for the very last time, I hit SEND. I am proud of myself, because although it was honest, it was not ranty or bitter or accusatory of any particular people.  And I had so many of my former colleagues contact me with their support, that it was a nice feeling.

I feel bad that my 12 1/2 years there ended as they did, but at least I was already planning to leave. In the months between the Archivist leaving and me leaving, many other people at the place had been fired or had left under a cloud since the CEO didn't like them. Sadly, though the place is full of good people trying to do good work, the administration is seemingly doing their best to either get everyone who had been there out of there so they can start over with their own people, or just tank it altogether. 

Now that I've had a month to adjust to things, I have to say I kind of feel like the young girl below as far as how I feel about the place.

Is my mental health improved? You bet, even though we are struggling financially. But we've been poor before, and so we know how to do that and adjust accordingly. 😊

So now you know that part of the story. In a future post, I'll fill you in on life during July - which started out really horribly but has ended on an upswing.

Yeah, Well, I'm Still Here

Hello everyone, it's been a while. I knew it had been a while, but then I got a comment on my last post (from a while ago) from Ellen D., and it occurred to me that I should at least let you know I'm still here. So thanks Ellen, for both your concern and giving me the boost to post something.

I have much to catch up on with all of you, but it won't be happening today. However, I do have a book report to post, and I have been knitting (and actually finishing) things, and life has been full of things that you will eventually hear all about - whether or not you want to hear about them! 😉

Just to reassure you, everyone is well - or at least as well as anyone in our house ever is when summer really decides to show up. 

I hope all of you are well, too. And if you actually enjoy the summer, I hope you are making the most of it. If you're like me, I hope you are managing to find a way to cope. It certainly sounds like most of the northern hemisphere is just too darn hot. I sincerely hope that the southern hemisphere is having just a normal winter and nothing too extreme. 

I hope your week goes well. Take care of yourselves.

New Year's Day and Then Some

I just have to say up front that I am glad that this year is an even-numbered one, I enjoy even numbers.  Though 2-0-2-1 did add up to five, which is another good number.  Yes, I am a weirdo with numbers, which is funny because math freaks me out, and has been the cause of low grades all through my school days.  Math and science - ugh.  Anyway, I do like numbers, as long as there are not difficult expecations ...

We had a very quiet New Year's Day, as expected.  It was too warm for this time of year, and incredibly dreary, both of which were dismaying.  I'm just hoping that it was not a symbol somehow for the upcoming year.  We just stayed put, and watched some movies, read, I finished a pair of socks I had been knitting, and there were a couple of walks with Hamlet.  Later in the day, we enjoyed our New Year's Day dinner:

Veggie bratwurst, sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, and blackeye peas (added after the photo was taken).  When I posted this picture on Instagram, Kim commented about the "his and hers Dijon mustard," but I had to disappoint her by telling her that one is Dijon and one his honey mustard, so they're not as quite "his and hers" as she suspected.  Anyway, it was really yummy, and we had leftovers for dinner last night, so we got two meals out of it.  Also, three different times that day, I kept saying "green-eyed peas" (instead of blackeye peas) and I don't think peas can be jealous?  So who knows what that was about.

Yesterday was just a day of getting little things done and/or out of the way, and (at least for me) wishing that work didn't start again today.  If wishes were fishes, etc.

I have a dentist appt this afternoon, for a cleaning.  I'm looking forward to it because it means I get to leave work an hour early.   You know it's bad when a DENTIST appt is something you look forward to happening!

I still need to make a final decision on my word for this year.  I thought I had one chosen, but the more I thought about it, the less I liked it.  I would rather not spend a year begrudging my word, you know?  So it's time to give it some additional thought and find one that is actually meaningful to me.

And that's all of the excitement from me, and no, it's not really exciting.  But a lot of life is just going along from day to day, doing the best you can, so I'm on track so far this year! 😉

I hope your day and the first full week of 2022 is good to you.  

The Week That Was

Remember when life just went along, and sometimes you would think to yourself that it was all just kind of boring, and how come nothing interesting or exciting ever happened?  

I learned a while ago that a lot of the time, boring is good.  Because at least in my case, "interesting" or "exciting" was not what I had been talking about.  I mean, if one day you are just living your life, and you find out that you won a million dollars somehow - that's exciting!  But when you are just living your life and then you find out that, say, you need to have a dental implant that costs thousands of dollars - well, OK, no one asks for THAT kind of intersting or exciting.

And this week was good example of that, both locally and globally, if you ask me.  I mean:

• pandemic continues and numbers go back up
• the U.S. troops leave Afghanistan
• Texas decides you can carry a gun with no license and no training, but you can't wear a mask to school and women cannot get legal abortions
• Hurricane Ida cuts a swath of destruction in Louisiana and Mississippi
• Ida's remnants come up the East Coast and there are TORNADOES in the Philadelphia area and New Jersey; New York City shuts down because of TOO MUCH WATER EVERYWHERE

And those are just the things that immediately come to mind!  As someone on Twitter commented the other day: "I think I would have rather had the plague of locusts."

Fortunately, The Tim and I and the critters are all fine, if just somewhat inconvenienced.  We got a little bit of water in our basement, but we get a little bit of water in our basement whenever it even thinks about raining, so no big deal.  No wind damage, no loss of power.  

However, west and north of us in the city - not so much.

You know the Schuylkill River Trail, which is 2 blocks west of our house, where we walk/ride bikes/walk the dog sometimes?  Here's how it looked yesterday:

Do you see on the right of the photo where there is what looks like pipes and something pointing to the sky along them?  Well, that's the trail, and those things pointing towards the sky are the lights on the trail!  

To quote The Tim: "Looks like we won't be riding our bikes there this weekend."

And then, this image, which many of you may have seen on the news.  This is the Vine Street Expressway, which cuts across the city from east to west, and is a major link.  But yesterday it was more like the Vine Street Canal:

And that is about 5 blocks north of our house and below but right in front of the building where I work!

My friend Lisa, who owns Hidden River Yarns in the Manayunk neighborhood of the city, couldn't get to her shop to see how things were, but her landlord informed her that the street level part of the store (aka ALL THE YARN) was dry, but the basement was flooded.  Phew!  

And my other friend Jocelyn who is the owner of O-Wool, lives on a farm nearby in New Jersey, and they lost a couple of trees in a tornado, but are otherwise safe (as is her yarn supply!) - but the house nearest to them, about a mile away, was completely destroyed.

And those two are some of the luckiest ones!

Can we all agree now that it would be absolutely wonderful to go back to boring now??? 😉

I hope wherever you are, reading this, that you are safe, well, and healthy.  And that if you are not, that help is on its way.  Take care everyone, and for those of us here in the U.S., have the best kind of Labor Day weekend that you can - however you can!

So Many Things

There is just too much going on in my brain and in my life these days.  Sadly, it's not really wonderful, fun stuff - rather it's related to work and finances, mostly.  I feel like I'm keeping my head above water, but I can see a LOT of big waves headed my way, and can only hope I'll resurface once those hit.  Ugh.

The good news is that I do have things that can help distract me.  The bad news is that even when I am completely distracted by those things, the others are always just sitting there waiting, full of self-satisfied knowledge that I have no choice but to know they are there.  It's exhausting.

Over the weekend, I was able to spend time on those distracting things - I finished a book I've been reading, worked on a sock, and worked on my summer top.  Though I have to tink back two rows on the summer top - which now has lots of stitches - because I am at a knit 1, purl 1 rib section and last night I noticed that two rows back, I did two knit stitches in a row.  And especially since it's on the front of the piece, I know it will bug me if I don't fix it.  At least it's only k1, p1, and not something more involved or complicated.  I fear at this point, that would just cause me to put it away indefinitely, or even just tear it all out and start over someday.  

Have I mentioned that I'm not a big fan of 1 x 1 rib?  I feel like I can never get into a rhythm with it, and so it ends up taking more brain space than I think it should.

Anyway.  I did treat myself to something fun recently:

Apparently, on a recent Fox News broadcast, Tucker Carlson (ick) made some comment about Kamala Harris visiting a yarn store or something related to that (I don't watch it, so I don't know the exact story), and referred to our Madame Vice-President as the "Crochet Czar."  Well, Neighborhood Fiber Co. and Nerd Bird Makery decided to do something about that, while also helping people.  So they created this enamel pin, and the proceeds went to help support Covid relief efforts in India.  I love it when people can take something that was said that was supposed to be mocking, and turn it into something positive and completely against what the original intent was!

Not much else to report right now.  Our weekend was pretty quiet, the kind where you get a little bit of stuff done, and make some progress, but none of it is on major projects or is something anyone else can see.  But it felt good to accomplish something anyway, and WE know what was done!

Our little family of mourning doves moved out about a week ago, on to their bird lives outside of their nest in our window.  I can only hope they all go one to live long lives, though life is tough for mourning doves.  We miss them so much!  I just loved opening the blinds every morning and having Deirdre and the babies there, and occasionally Dad - who The Tim named Jacques Derrida.  They were all so sweet to see, and so curious to look in the window.  I pointed out to The Tim that we were truly experiencing Empty Nest Syndrome ...

We are currently "in the market" so to speak for a new kitty family member.  Dee and I have discussed this, because we think *any* homeless kitty is one who needs us.  But The Tim has decreed long ago that we can only adopt animals who truly NEED us, and by that he means they have something going on that would make it less likely they would be adopted otherwise.  Balancing with that the fact that a lot of special needs kitties are not ones we could really help - i.e., if they need medication or treatment regularly, we are not always home and cannot likely afford it right now - or our house is not perfect for them, it's been a challenge.  But I have faith that one way or another the right kitty will show up, and often rules made by The Tim are also thrown out the window by him.

Case in point:  After Dug the Doodle Dog died a few years back, when we decided it was time to think about getting another dog, The Tim said he would prefer if we got a smaller dog, and one that might not shed as much.  And as you know, we ended up with Hamlet, an 80-pound Golden Retriever who sheds as his primary hobby!  😍

Anyway, that's it for now.  I hope your week goes well, and that wherever you happen to be, the weather is not causing massive problems for you and/or for you community.  Take care.

Be Brave

If you're brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello 

-- Paulo Coehlo

Oh 2019, you weren't the worst year ever, but you sure weren't the best one, either.  All the same, I'm sorry to say goodbye to you, as I do not like most goodbyes, particularly those that can put me further away from those that meant something to me, or things and places that I love.  

I really do wish that I could say it's been a wonderful year, but well, it just hasn't.  I'm ending the year feeling that a lot of things that weren't that great to start are not getting better, and probably won't, if I'm being realistic.  At least not anytime soon.  Which is disheartening, but so much of it is seriously out of my control, that I need to learn to accept it the best I can for now.

Instead, I want to think about the things I can control in my life, and the good things that have happened, even if they didn't seem to be the overarching moments in my immediate memory.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again - no year is all bad or all good.  

And so, my hope for all of us is that we will give 2019 a break, because there were in fact moments of joy and fun and happiness, even if those are not the ones that immediately place themselves in the front of our memories. 

We're all still here.  That's what matters.  I hope your new hello will make you smile more than anything else in the next year.

Meanderings

I really didn't intend to go quiet for so long, but the past week was just not kind to me.  And though I kept up with your blogs, I mostly didn't take the time to comment because ... well, because.

But I have been knitting away (finished the stripey socks!), and reading, and paying attention to the world - and doing my usual amount of overthinking the little things.  It's what I do.

Here are just some of the things that have passed through my brain over the past week.

-- Am I the only knitter in the world who doesn't mind purling and/or seed stitch?  I've never thought purling was annoying or difficult, and I love the texture created by seed stitch.  But nearly everyone I know will do anything to avoid the purl stitch, and some people will skip something entirely if seed stitch is involved.

-- Why do people want to have a gun?  I know people who want/have them, but even when they give me legitimate reasons, I don't understand.  I guess because I've never even been curious about or fascinated by guns at all.  And I will never ever ever ever understand why individual citizens should have an assault weapon.

--  Am I the only person who doesn't care about the British Royal Family and in fact actively dislikes everything they represent?  Even friends of mine who are not obsessed with them seem addicted to knowing everything they do, etc. 

--  I watched a lot of the Olympics, and I enjoyed a lot of it, but why in the name of a small black dog named Pete did it seem that the bulk of the events covered were snowboarding?  I do not wish ill to snowboarders or their activity, but there are other sports, and I would have liked to seen more of them.  Even those where (gasp!) there was not a touching/tragic/American human interest story.

--  Dystopian books/novel/plays do nothing for me.  It would be hard for me to find them more annoying.

--  Why does everything have to be a MAJOR THING these days?  Can't things happen, or can't people have experiences, without it becoming somehow Very Important or Extremely Symbolic? 

--  Following up on that, why are stupid people famous and even worse, admired?  Not that I want them rounded up and shot (well .... no, no I don't), but why are they so celebrated?   Smart people - heck, even just average people with sense - are looked on with suspicion or even mocked. 

--  Also, you will never convince me that it is a bad thing to be a feminist. 

OK, I've gotten all of that off my chest.  Time to leave for my appointment with the eye doctor, and then on to the hilarity and wonderfulness of the work day.  [insert sarcasm]

Happy March, Happy Friday, and here's to a wonderful weekend! 

Pensive

Tomorrow is the beginning of the last week I will be in my fifties.  It seems weird to say that, even weirder to realize it.  I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about turning 60, which I guess is not surprising since it is a milestone age.  I'm fortunate to live in a time and place where it doesn't mean that I'm being put out to pasture so to speak, but there are still realizations that come with making it this far.

When I turn 60:

I will have outlived my father by seven years.  That's crazy, since dying at the age of 53 seems so uncommon and young.  I remember that even at the time, he didn't seem *that* old to me, but now I realize just how young he was.

I will still be working with no real end in sight and in a job I truly hate.  This disappoints me, I have to be honest.  Not the still working part, because I didn't have any plans for early retirement.  But the job-hating part is the kicker.  For so many reasons, I'm pretty stuck where I am for the duration, and that is depressing.  And since recent illnesses have pretty much taken care of any financial cushion we may have had, retirement is likely a looooonnnng time away for me.

I will have survived three different cancers.  That's both ridiculous (no one should get three different cancers, one is insulting enough!), and wonderful (I am only too well aware of how lucky I am!).  I am fortunate in this as well, that I live in a time and place where surviving any cancer at all is a strong possibility.  My father, mentioned above, died from liver cancer when it was basically a death sentence from the get go, and that less than 50 years ago!  Now cancer can be detected long before you have any noticeable symptoms.

I will remember things like dial telephones, non-remote TVs with antennas, black-and-white TV, party lines on your telephone, cameras that used film you had to send away to be developed before you knew how the pictures looked, and so many other things that seem like distant relics today!  That's so weird, it's like I've done time-traveling or something!  :-)

I will be closer to dying than not.  I don't dwell on this fact, certainly, but it can be sobering to realize that your chances of dying are stronger than they were when you were 40.  Having said that, I certainly hope my time will not be up for a long time, since I have no desire to leave.

I will be able to appreciate the fact that I know myself pretty well.  I've always been self-aware to some degree, but only as I've gotten older have I realized how important that is.  I think it's one of my strengths and I feel bad for people who never seem to understand the concept.

I will be - to some degree - living the life that I want to live.  If you take away the work thing (and sadly, that is a big chunk, but it's not everything), I am lucky to have the life I do.  I have a house that I love in a place that is somewhere I enjoy living, I have The Tim, who even if we are not madly, passionately embracing every minute, is my true companion and partner in crime.  I am surrounded by animals that I love and that has always been a dream of mine.  I have books, music, yarn, TV, and a few true friends.  I have many friendly and pleasant acquaintances.  I've been able to travel, and hope to do some more.

I will have led a good life so far.  :-)

So even if I can't say "Here's to the next 60!" (because frankly I have no desire to live to be 120 years old), I can say "Let's keep doing this, and see what happens!"

Have a good week, and remember to be glad you are here.