A Blank Page...

That's what I'm faced with every time I want to post something on the blog. What am I going to fill it with? Is anybody even going to read it? (yes, I'm a bit paranoid and emo when it comes to the blog.) My dreams have been very fractured and strange lately - moreso than usual. And through them flows a constant parade of my ex-boyfriends and friends long left behind. It's really disturbing sometimes - although it was comforting to note in last night's episodes that I'm no more fond of the jerk from Indiana in dreams than I am I my waking life.

I've also felt somewhat stifled by the "structured" format I adopted previously. So I've decided to shake thing up a bit. There will be a bit of stream-of-consciousness crap at the top here, and then, if I have anything to say about the structured stuff, I will toss that in afterward. I woke up determined that today would be better than the rest of the week had been. I've been getting very frustrated and angry (I was swearing at the spinning wheel last night - loudly) and unpleasant to be around, and that's not who I want to be. So today, only good things are happening and I'm actually being productive and pleasant. And tired. SO freaking tired. I wish I could curl up under my desk (there's room!) and take a nap.

A couple of weeks ago, I was out with Kari and I picked up some Reflections CDs from the drugstore. You know, those displays with a speaker where you can choose which CD you want to hear an excerpt from? I bought three - one was Reiki something or other, one was Spirit Earth and the third was Zen Tranquility (sorry, the Reiki one is in my car!). I bought them to be able to do yoga along to - because yoga without background music is boring. Have I done any yoga? Not yet... but I've been having major yoga URGES, which is a step in the right direction. I will get there. Soon. I hope? I often get urges to get up and go for a walk too - my calves will start pinging (muscle twinges) and aching and I've actually been managing to get myself up off my ass once in a while when that happens now. I'm still a lazy ass, but I'm less of a lazy ass than I *was*, and I like to see that as progress. Sort of.

An exercise in frustration...

I won't lie. The last couple of days have been extremely frustrating. I started my day off feeling fantastic yesterday. I had this dream. I don't remember the rest of it, but I was with this man. And we were in love. And just before I woke up, we walked along a beach and sat down at the edge of a crumbling concrete bleacher and laid down on the ground. I put my head on his chest, looked up at him and said, "I love you..." The man's face is not familiar to me, but he looked down at me, amused, and said, "I love you too. Are you being adorably romantic right now, or just needy?"

"I don't know," I said. He looked confused. "I just never want this to end..." I explained. And as we kissed, I awoke. In a few minutes of dreaming, I rediscovered my wonder at being in love. It felt amazing. It felt fantastic. I woke up in a great mood that followed me throughout most of the day.

I had Judaism class last night, and it was my third meeting with the Rabbi. He seemed a bit standoffish and I was very uncomfortable. I tried explaining that I had clearly had some preconceived notions before our last meeting, and I wasn't sure what he expected of me. He said he needed clarification. I answered his questions as best I could, and then he asked one I couldn't answer. "What do you expect will change if you convert to Judaism?" Well.... I can't really know, can I, never having been Jewish before. But that wasn't what he wanted to hear. And I was frustrated and tearful and afraid that I would not be allowed to convert, that I wouldn't be allowed to join the cool kids' table (I'm using a joke for effect here, I don't think that becoming Jewish will make me one of the "cool kids").

So then I had to go back to class, unable to keep the tears at bay, and try to muddle through Hebrew class while thoughts churned in my head. What do I expect will change? What am I expecting conversion to do for me? I was raised Roman Catholic. French Roman Catholic. I was an altar girl, I was in all the youth groups, I was pretty involved. And then I discovered some things about the Roman Catholic Church that I didn't agree with. We won't go into that, but I ended up leaving the Church. And I felt that a piece of me had been lost. I felt as though a piece of my identity before God was missing. I have searched long and hard for that missing piece, and I believe I have found it in Judaism. That's what I expect will change, I suppose. I will once again become a whole being before God. I was not born Jewish, but it is who I have become - it is the path I have chosen to follow - and I would like that to be acknowledged by becoming a Bat Mitzvah.

I apologize for all the religious discussion. I normally keep my beliefs pretty close to the vest, and I don't like to subject others to them (or be subjected to other people's beliefs), but this issue has caused me much consternation over the last few days and I needed to get my thoughts in order. And writing them out seemed like the best way to do that.

Today, I actually got quite a bit done at work - considerably more than I had anticipated. I left to do groceries with a small, developing headache that, by the time I had reached the grocery store, had turned into a raging migraine, complete with upset stomach and aural vision. Joy. It's gone now, but didn't do much for my mood earlier. Poor Zachary brought the spinning wheel up from the car and it fell apart on him as he walked through the back door. I panicked and yelled at him, and he got quite upset about it, winning me the Mom of the Year award *sigh* We did get it all put back together (gotta love eccentric antiques), and it works. I couldn't figure out how to tie a leader cord onto the second bobbin, and Kari actually made me a video to show how to do it, but I couldn't get the laptop to play sound, and I was getting more and more irritated... Until I took a step back, cleared my head, and looked down. And this is what I saw:

That right there is an entire bobbin of my very own handspun. It's ugly and uneven and overspun in some places and underspun in others, and it's nowhere near perfect or even usable, but it's mine. I made it and I love it :) And now I'm going to bed with a smile on my face. Hopefully Rob's sitting on a concrete bleacher by the beach waiting for me!

Revelation...

So I'm getting ready for my spinning class (not that kind of spinning, Rob...) and I made myself "dinner for breakfast" - NY Strip loin steak and fiddleheads. I had some laundry going, I was knitting on a sock, and messing around on the computer, so I wasn't focusing much on eating. After half the steak and a few fiddleheads, I noticed I wasn't really hungry anymore. But I KEPT. EATING. I ate most of the steak and about 3/4 of the fiddleheads before really cluing into the fact that HEY DUMBASS, YOU'RE NOT HUNGRY! WHY ARE YOU EATING?

I think I have a tendency to prepare way more food than I need to be eating - and in many cases, way more than I'm hungry for. And then? Then I don't want to have to deal with the leftovers, so I just keep eating it until it's gone.

Today, I ate more than I should have because I didn't want to put it away and because I wasn't paying attention to my food or my body. I pushed the plate away, but it was still sitting in front of me while I did other things. I REALLY wasn't hungry anymore, and I actually feel kind of overly full now, so I picked the plate up, walked into the kitchen, put some plastic wrap over the plate and stuck it in the fridge. This small thing, this tiny thing that most people take for granted, was a HUGE step for me. I can't tell you the last time I put leftovers in the fridge. It's just not something I'm conditioned to do.

Go me :)

Hey... is this thing on?

Sorry about that. I fully intended on blogging before we left for Maryland, and I flubbed it.

The girls and I left bright and early Friday morning to head for MDSW. It's a long drive. Not as long as the drive to Chicago, but pretty long, nonetheless! There was road trip food (we're becoming masters at this), there was music, there was caffeine. Our hotel was quiet, clean, and FULL of MDSW attendees - as we were checking in, we met knitters :D

Saturday morning, we had breakfast at Waffle House (okay food, way dirty restaurant though - there was a PUDDLE in the kitchen that servers and cooks kept stepping in and tracking all over the damn place - hork!) and then we headed to the fairgrounds. The Howard County fairgrounds in West Friendship, MD are located in such a picturesque neighborhood, we could hardly stand it. It took every bit of willpower we had not to pool our money and buy a nearby property that was for sale. I'm being facetious... there was no way we could afford a property there! The tiny one we saw right across from the fairground entrance was $400,000 ;)

We dropped our camp chair and yoga mat off at Hoar Base Camp and off we went to peruse the vendor booths! Fortunately, Cloverhill was one of the earlier vendors we came across, but even so, they were almost entirely out of the one-pound Three Irish Girls bundles we were looking for. I snagged one that's all gorgeous reds - four skeins of sock yarn and two mini-skeins of what looks like sport weight. SO pretty!

I also picked up a skein of Wild Hare Fiber Studio Pinnacle sock yarn in black, grey and hot pink :) I had put Rob's sock in the naughty corner - oh, let's face it, I frogged it again - and I needed sock yarn to start a sock, so the black and pink got elected!

I also managed to pick up a 4-oz bump of superwash BFL from Bullen's Wullens (who don't yet have a website... o.O) that is so soft and wonderful and I'm in love with it (and it was $10!). Pics to follow once I get home tonight and upload them.

I bought the fiber because.... Drum roll please.... I have acquired a spinning wheel :D My friend Denise sort of has a bit of a hobby of buying used wheels, drum carders, etc., fixing them up and reselling them. So when she got her hands on this beauty, she offered to sell it to me, knowing that I was looking but that my budget was very limited:

That right there is a Haldane Shetland wheel (Denise was about to give it a coat of Dutch wood oil so the band is off and it looks a bit wonky). I got it for pennies, and I pick it up to bring it home tomorrow! I am SOOOO excited!!! Now I just need to take a spinning class, since I've never spun before. Now maybe I'll be able to help the girls get on with the fleece I bought them last year! Millie is still sitting in Sue's craft room in the corner because nobody has the heart to keep working on her - Kari used the drum carder she borrowed from a friend of ours to process a bit of it, but there's SO much left. It's kind of insane.

I also picked up a bunch of little odds and ends (including some really pretty little apple-sized bumps of colored fiber, cookie cutters, and some other little unique items) as a prize care package for people who met us at the festival and had their pictures taken with Sue and Kari. If you met with us and took a picture, go over to the Two Tangled Skeins group on Ravelry and post them for your chance to win!

There was a podcasters' meetup on Saturday afternoon, and I sat there winding my skein of black & pink yarn into a ball and casting on the sock... and apparently burning to a crisp, which did not become apparent until many hours later. Kari went out after we got back to the hotel for the night to get some aloe because Sue and I had both burned ourselves silly. We missed the LSG meetup at the Diamondback Tavern in Ellicott City because we were all too wiped out to be personable. The drive home on Sunday was pretty brutal because we were all still really tired, and starting to get cranky about the lack of sleep, but we made it :)

Next up is Stitches Midwest, but that's not until the beginning of August, so there will be a lot more going on between now and then. Right now, I'm attempting to initiate a purge of my home because there's wayyyyy too much crap in there right now. I may take Kari up on her offer to help some time this week ;)

Quiet afternoon

I'm alone in the office, and I got a ridiculous amount of shit done so far today, so I'm taking a minute to blog ;)

Fitness - I'm loving having the treadmill operational again. Unfortunately, this has coincided with warmer weather outside (meaning sweltering hot in the apartment) so I've been doing more walking outside and other things. I've been trying to figure out how to make my kitchen big enough to do yoga in. I have almost enough space... this morning I was futzing around the back room - the one where the treadmill lives - and suddenly had an apostrophe! (cookie for the reference) The back room is TOTALLY big enough to do yoga in! It's carpeted, but that's okay. I bought myself a thick exercise mat at Walmart the other day, and I'll put my yoga mat on top of that and I'll be golden! I even bought some nice mellow yoga-doing music :) I'm tempted to bring my yoga mat to Maryland this weekend, but I'm sharing the car with two other people, so I have to pack light.

Knitting - TADA!!!!! I finished the fingerless mitts! I haven't taken a picture of them yet, but they're done, ends woven in and all! That's only my fifth finished project for 2013. *sigh* I restarted Rob's socks as soon as the second mitt was off the needles, and then goofed around row 6. So I'm putting them in time-out until my brain realigns with my fingers and I am able to knit on DPNs again *sigh* Work has been progressing on the Strawberries and Cream top. Once we're back from Maryland, I'll have to put it on two needles so Skye can try it on. I may try to cast Rob's socks on again tonight or tomorrow, since I'll need Maryland knitting. Oh, and did I mention that Sue, Kari and I are taking Two Tangled Skeins to MARYLAND SHEEP AND WOOL FESTIVAL? That's right! We're leaving Friday morning, and we'll be recording an episode of the show at the hotel! I'm SO EXCITED!!!!! If you're there and happen to see us wandering around, come on over and say hi! We have buttons :)

Food - not much to say, other than to squee over these bacon "mats" we tried to cook on Saturday after recording the show.

Ours needed to cook at a higher temperature than we used, so I'll try again this week. They're meant to be road-trip food ;) I'm also in charge of lunch meats and sammiches. Tomorrow, I need to bake some muffins and pick up a loaf of bread for the PB&Js. Sue has bought veggies to snack on, some dried fruits and snack foods, and Kari is making us cinnamon buns for breakfast and a few other bits and bobs. We usually pack all our food to avoid eating out. We know how to road-trip ;)

School - Not much to say. I have Judaism class tonight, and I'm looking forward to going home afterward. It always seems to be on the night before I have a class that I can't fall asleep no matter what I do.

Everything else - I am absolutely fascinated with my pretty hot pink nails right now (Essence Color & Go in Ultimate Pink - cause apparently I'm a stealth girly girl). I discovered last weekend that I'm a coward and can no longer ride a two-wheeled bike. (I was terrified, and I only coasted about 10 feet). *sigh* To be fair, the last time I rode a bike that wasn't attached to a stand in a gym was when Zachary was ... um... three? I'm pathetic. Thankfully, I have a boyfriend who likes to build custom bikes in his spare time and he has a plan. I'm not sure what the plan is yet, but I'm optimistic! I hope I gave someone a bacon urge with that pic up there, because I definitely gave myself one!

WOOT! 12,000 page views :)

Now if only I could cultivate a few more followers / commenters!

Fitness - OMG I missed my treadmill! Last night, I was feeling lazy. Skye and I had been to the mall for my optometrist appointment (good news, blood sugar is controlled enough that my vision has improved back to what it was before, and I do NOT need new glasses!) and I had stepped wrong and hurt my left ankle. I didn't think I'd be moving again that night, but when I was talking to Rob on the phone after dinner, it felt okay, and he was kind of shaming me, so I hopped on the treadmill and did my 30 minutes! HOLY HELL, it's hot in my back room. The landlord hasn't turned the heat down yet, and the window is placed in such an odd location that I get no air circulation back there. I'm going to have to buy a fan :)

So I was reading the latest Martha Stewart Living the other day, and there was a short article about a resort I found interesting (in Maine). I sent a link to Rob after poking around on their site for a bit, and he was really interested in going as well, so he decided to challenge me. When I hit 240lbs, he will take me to this place in Maine for a romantic getaway :) So if you were wondering what the ticker at the top of the page was for, that's it.

Knitting - I've been half-heartedly poking at the fingerless mitts the last few days. I haven't really had any knitting time, so there's not much to report. I did manage to do one pattern repeat of the Strawberries and Cream (formerly Super Seekrit Test Knit), so at least that was something. There will be much more knitting in anticipation of Maryland! We leave in less than two weeks!

Food - Not much to report. I did falter last night and order pizza... but I'll admit that was motivated by my inability to get within 3 feet of my kitchen sink or counter. When the treadmill guy came last week, I told the kids to clear everything out of the back room. So they moved it all - five feet away to the floor in front of the kitchen sink *sigh* We just haven't been home long enough to really tackle the kitchen, so that's the plan tonight. I need to be able to move around the kitchen (such as it is) in order to be able to cook. I really wanted to make soup last night and couldn't. I also need to move one of the wall units that used to live in the back room into the kitchen to hold pots, pans and appliances (and get rid of the old kitchen table, since I now have the new one). Organization!


School - nothing new to report, other than I'm LOVING the more intense Hebrew classes!

Everything else - We reached 12,000 page views last night! Not bad, for a sporadic blogger with no traffic ;) I already mentioned the eventual trip to Maine. I've talked about Maryland, and Rob and I are also planning a trip to Hudson Valley, NY with the kids this summer, so I'm psyched about that! Skye starts her swimming class next week, so that's when Zachary and I will start going to the gym :) I'm really looking forward to his first time! Now if only the laundry fairy would visit my house...

I'm pooped!

Fitness - I have a newly functioning treadmill, so I did use it today! YAY! I did half an hour, and it reminded me why I only use the manual setting. I did "Hill walk" and the thing immediately jumped to 3.5mph. HOLY CROW. I can't walk that fast. I just about died LOL I ended up switching over to the manual setting for the remainder of the walk after the first ten minutes or so. My calves hurt now :) There was also some baby and toddler wrangling earlier today (more about that later) so I imagine I'll be a bit sore tomorrow. The kids and I had a great day though :)

Knitting - I started another hexipuff, and noticed I was missing two of the earlier ones. Not sure where they are, but I should find them when I clean my room. I've gotten to the point on Laura's Ribbed Mitts where I need to separate the thumb out. I was pretty tired when I got to that point last night at knit night, so I put it aside. Today, I've been working on the super secret test knit (which is now a pattern for purchase on Ravelry), and I've made a fair bit of progress. Unfortunately, after the designer put the pattern out for purchase... *sigh* BUT! Now I have pictures :) This is what I have on the needles right now:

The ubiquitous hexipuffs! - The Beekeeper's Quilt by Tiny Owl Knits

Skye's sweater - the Cable Rib Pullover by Karen TenDyke in Bernat Handicrafter Cotton.

The Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman in Lang Jawoll 4-ply.

The Spiral Scarf (from a tutorial) by Staci Perry in Noro Maiko.

The test knit! - Strawberries and Cream by Amora Designs. in Bernat Handicrafter Cotton Twists.

Laura's Ribbed Mitts by Carrie Barraco in Estelle Cadenza. Apparently, they match my couch.

The spiral scarf may be tossed, since my son's cat seems to love munching on the Noro. I don't know why. She's never done this to any other yarn I've brought into the house. If I leave an actual ball of anything else out, she'll chase it until I have a massive spiderweb, but this one? She hoards it behind or under furniture, and SUCKS on it. I don't know if they dipped the yarn in tuna or if catnip is one of the main ingredients in the dye they used or what, but she LOVES this stuff and will actually tear through bags to get a ball of it out. She ruined one ball completely, so I may just toss the whole thing. It's god-awful stuff to knit with anyway *sigh*

Food - I didn't think I was going to have much to say on this subject, but then my kids started badgering me for dinner tonight and OMG. I discovered something awesome. I had one small eye of round steak thawed (I meant to eat it last night and didn't), I had a package of naan in the fridge, I had some other odds and ends, so I ended up making this (sorry, we ate it all before I could take pictures):

Butter Chicken Naan Pizzas:

3 naan
6 Tbsp Butter Chicken sauce (we used KFI)
1 8oz eye of round steak, cooked and diced
1 cup broccoli florets, steamed (next time, I'd use cauliflower)
1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella or mild cheddar cheese

Spread 2 Tbsp of sauce on each naan. Top each with 1/3 of the steak cubes and broccoli florets, and then sprinkle with cheese. Broil for 5 minutes or until cheese is melted. NOM.

My daughter is not a huge fan of butter chicken sauce, so I made hers with PC Chipotle salsa :)

School - Nothing new to say.

Everything else - Today was AWESOME! Today I went to the sugar bush with my kids, parents, brother & family, all the aunts and uncles, and some family friends. We go to Domaine de l'ange gardien in Ange Gardien, Quebec. The food is amazing - it was hard to behave myself this morning, but I did push the plate away after one small helping of everything because I truly wasn't hungry anymore. If nothing else, go for the "oreilles de crisse"... the best translation I can come up with for these is super-crispy fried bacon. I limited myself to two small pieces today, and I was very proud of myself. So the toddler wrangling... well, my sister-in-law recently had surgery, and she can't pick up either of her kids for a few weeks, and my brother was busy wrangling the baby, so I ended up running after my nephew (who is 2 1/2 and full of energy) a lot today. The kids got some maple toffee on a stick, my mom got her oreilles de crisse, and we all had a really good time :) I had such a good time that I had to have a nap when I got home (well, that and six hours' of sleep last night...). We've kind of taken it easy the rest of the day, and now I'm ready for bed. Goodnight!