Accounted for

Being single again, and having already seen my family for Thanksgiving, I didn't know how I would feel about spending the rest of the holidays alone. On the one hand, it's a relief to not be traveling by plane. On the other, there is a tendency to get mopey when I'm all by myself for too long or in certain situations.

I am happy to say that I have been accounted for. I had both an invitation to visit friends on Christmas, and have been invited to a New Year's Eve party. I guess it seems like a small thing, but I was really touched to be remembered and included. Mr W will be with his dad xmas eve and xmas morning, but I'll have him in the afternoon and we'll go visit friends in Denver after we open presents here.

I've also signed up to volunteer at our First Night celebration downtown. It's funny, I find the idea of having a kid-friendly New Year's Eve celebration that involves the arts so darn appealing. My kid, however, has never agreed with this sentiment, and has never wanted to go. So this year, darnit, I'm going by myself! I'll help out at one venue for a few hours, and then am free to wander around the others for free before I head over to the party.

This is good stuff.

Just give me money

I decided to refinance my mortgage in order to pull some equity out and do some improvements. I've been approved pending the appraisal, which happens this morning. For some reason, I'm a little nervous. There's no reason it won't appraise for more than I paid for it, considering I've done some improvements already.

Maybe it's just the idea of someone looking at my stuff, in my space. I feel like I've let go the putting-crap-away aspect of housekeeping since I started teaching. For example, there have been cardboard boxes on my enclosed front porch for several months, and I just got them cut up into the 2x2 ish sections and bundled so they can be recycled. The place looks great, only now I need to go back and pull stuff out of boxes and out from under things and actually organize them. That's OK, it will happen.

Mr W and I will go see some holiday lights tonight, and he's got a play date tomorrow, so the weekend is shaping up to be busy in a good way. It's so nice not to be worrying that I need to get a lecture outline done, or a quiz made. I might take a stab at starting to organize my school stuff, though.

Knittypallooza

It's been a lean few months for knitting around here. I've gotten a couple of things done that I posted the other day, and I'm almost done with a pair of socks, but I have to frog (that's rip out in its entirety) one because I made it too big and ran out of yarn).

I really do enjoy knitting in the evenings. It's relaxing, and most of the time I am content to listen to NPR and knit and that's it. It's sort of meditative. Well not this semester! It was almost like BEING in school, remember that? When, no matter how much time you had, and no matter what you got done, there was always something hanging over your head that needed to be done.

Eesh. So, needless to say, I'm thrilled to have gone through preparing for the bio class I teach once, and getting stuff organized is part of my between semester plans.

However, I have declared the weekend after Christmas: Knittypallooza. I have this sweater, this, ahem, summer sweater, that I started last spring, and would very much like to do a big push and get it done over the next couple of weeks. You know, so I can start something else! I also have the aforementioned sock to reknit, and then yet another sock to rip out and redo. I actually do love to knit socks, it's just hard to tell in the first few inches if they are going to fit, and my second one is often not identical to the first.

Knittypallooza will require me to sit around an knit most of the weekend, and I think I'm up to the challenge. Going for that long will let me feel like I've made up for lost time and get it out of my system.

There is a local knitting group that meets weekly and is getting together tonight. I might try to make that, although it's waaayyy on the other end of town. I'm starting to feel like I need to get out, after a few weeks of hermit-dom.

Just about there

I'm just about ready to turn my grades in for this first semester of teaching at the community college. In what amounts to the epitome of going through every little thing for the first time, yesterday I went to campus to get the finals scored on the scoring machine. As these things go, I had learned how to use the OTHER machine, not the one I had gotten forms for and my students had taken their test on. So I had to trudge over to the department office and bug the extremely nice and helpful admin assistant, who was her usual helpful self. She's so helpful that I feel bad when she drops everything to help me, you know?

So my finals have been scored, I just need to tally up the two parts (multiple choice and written) and add that to the rest of their grade, which I've already calculated. I'll turn it all in tonight.

I did get a chance to meet briefly with the lead instructor, who is my supervisor, and it made me really want to get a full time gig doing this. It's very unlikely at this institution, but one never knows. I've resolved to look around, and see what comes up between here and Denver.

I knew I would like it, and for all my complaining about being buried under the prep work and grading, I very much enjoyed it. The students come in with almost no scientific literacy at all. I tried (and will hit this point harder next time) to expose them to ideas that had relevancy to their daily lives. Two things I used were the Science and the City podcast, and Ted Talks. Both were about 20 minutes long per segment, and I had students do write ups on the topic.

During the break between semesters, I'm actually looking forward to getting my stuff organized into folders, so I can do more of a grab and go sort of thing. I hope to also get out and socialize more, I feel like I've been a bit of a homebody the last couple of months.

New Projects

Here are two projects I've completed lately. We had a cold snap here and it was good motivation to get these done. The hat is a pattern called Stella's Hat and is made from alpaca, which is kind of droopy, but very soft. The cowl is a pattern called Crofter's Cowl, and made from Cascade Venezia, which is silk and merino - great stitch definition and quite soft. It's a dark purple, which looks a bit yellowed in the photo.

Old me's

My dad's been getting the family photos organized. Yesterday I received a package with "my" photos in it. I had long forgotten about most of them. I need to get them scanned and will post some when that happens. How was it that we thought those huge eyeglasses looked stylish? So funny.

One thing I've noticed, though, is about how I look as a teenager and adult. I've always been about this size, always been a little heavier than I wanted, always thought if I could just lose those 10 lbs, I'd look so much better. Looking at some of these pictures, I realize that my shape has been pretty consistent over the years.

If I was exercising and eating healthy in a way that I thought I was doing all I could reasonably do for myself, I guess I'd be more inclined to accept that this is what I look like. But, while I do OK foodwise (I don't eat much meat, and I try to eat a variety of foods) and I walk several times a week with Sally at the dog park, it always feels like I should do more.

Maybe I should try what I call the "red wine-noodles-sorrow" diet. When I was going through the divorce, I dropped that pesky 10 lbs. (not intentionally) by drinking a couple of glasses of wine in the evening, eating ramen noodles (no seasoning, just a little peanut oil and soy), and walking around the house crying. I'm kidding (mostly).

No, I don't want to go that route. I do want to have good tools to cook good food for Mr W and myself, though, so yesterday I bought this. Better yet, I used a gift card that my brother in law gave me that had been sitting around. I took it to Macy's yesterday and the very nice clerk was able to reactivate it. So, I paid $25 for a pot that retails for (OMG) $139. I hope to have it for years.

I like the idea of having the right tools to cook with, and I do want to grow and actually eat some vegetables that we grow next year. I hope this kind of mindfulness towards what I eat contributes to a healthier me.

Cold and hopeful

I snapped this of Sally the other morning when it was about -10 outside. She has the tough job of sleeping on my bed most days, but is always on the look out for opportunities to get out and go to the dog park or to "dog school", the doggie day care that wears her out and lets me off the hook for dog park duties once or twice a week.

A good night's sleep

It's been cold here. As in dipping down below zero for the last few nights. The year I bought this house (2005) I had the house insulated. It seemed like the furnace wouldn't go on much at all at night, which is a good thing, because in this small house, the furnace wakes me up every time it kicks on. I'm happy to use earplugs when I don't have Mr W staying at the house, but if he is, then I want to be able to hear him if he calls.

Last year I thought I had the cleverest of solutions because if the furnace turned on during the middle of the night, I had a little space heater set on the floor below the thermostat that I would turn on low to fool the furnace into not turning on for the next few hours. That worked like a charm, but now the dog's got the run of the living room at night, and I'm just not comfortable yet leaving the heater running while she's in there. It's not like she leaps around, she's good about plopping down on her blanket and staying put until morning. I still might put the heater on a small table and try that.

Last night, though, I was all about putting in the earplugs and taking an Ambien. It worked really well, and when the alarm went off this morning, I could just tell that I rested well. And today was a good day. When I get a good night's sleep, I feel like I'm at my best. I was playing songs on my ipod in the lab, and had a smile for everyone I crossed paths with.

This makes me wonder what the world would be like if people routinely got enough sleep. How would we treat each other if we were all well-rested? People would be less stressed out in general, I would predict, and have more patience with other people and themselves.

Just my two cents.

One down, a couple to go

I finished shopping for Mr W last night. And before I revel in my great purchase, I do want to acknowledge that I'm happy/relieved to be able to do any shopping this season, and will do a post soon on how I'm trying to foster some sense of giving to Mr W, who gives lip service to the idea, but is just starting to understand that someone's gotta give for someone else to get.

I wanted to get him an inexpensive video camera because he's shown some interest in making short movies with his Bionicle toys. I love the Flip cameras, it's just the all in one sort of thing I was looking for, but they were just a little to pricey for an 8 year old.

So this is what I got: Which I see this morning is $1.20 cheaper today than it was yesterday - 'doh! That's OK. It was about $40.00 which is low enough that if something tragic happens, no one will get too upset.

I need to do other family shopping, for nieces, nephews and my dad. His birthday is Dec. 23rd, and godhelpyou if you combine gifts. He is easy to buy for, though, and desires restaurant gift cards. I do one of those for his birthday, and then for Christmas, I go rogue and for the last few years have gotten him something that he hasn't asked for, but uses anyway and this pleases me greatly. It's fancy jelly from Harry and David. I don't know, to give a person who has a very narrowly defined gift list something they will enjoy pleases me.

Oh, and as for myself, my LYS (that's local yarn store, for non-knitters) is having a 30% off sale on a brand of yarn that I like. I'm going to buy a sweater's worth of yard tonight for me. Now, if I could only gift myself the time to knit that sweater....

More Mom Pictures

Here are some more pictures I found when I was home last.

This is the most recent. 1961 when she took Dad home to meet her parents.

Mom in her Nursing School gradutation portrait. I love how the name tag says "Miss Temple"

I'm guessing this is her high school portrait. That locket is still around, but I'm not sure who has it.

I love this one - she's probably 15. So sassy!

Another project

So here's another thing I'd like to get done to my house in the next 4-6 months. This is a picture of a pair of windows in my living room,which runs almost the length of the yard. My plan is to replace these windows with a sliding glass patio door. This side of the house faces north, so I don't want to sacrifice any light by putting in a single door. A patio door is almost this size, and I'm hoping that fact makes the job a little simpler.

The other part of this is that I want to have a 10 x 10 deck built on the other side of the doors, so I can spend time outside comfortably. It will also be great not to have to leash the dog and walk her out to the yard. I'm looking forward to creating sort of an extra room, and I want the deck covered with a pergola of some kind to block the sun in the summer.

Right now, though, the Christmas tree is in front of these windows, and there is about 8" of snow on the ground. Forecast is for another 3-5", and it's going down to -1.