Tap, Tap. Is this thing on?

I received two inquiries in the space of 24 hours as to whether I was ever going to post again, so here I am :-)

Things are good, posts will likely be sporadic, but stuff happens and I think to myself pretty regularly that I should "get those thoughts down somewhere".

Yesterday was my birthday. I was a little trepidatious that I was going to spend it by myself, which can lead to brooding and not seeing the big picture. But I went to church, and while there got roped into helping out with something (which I actually love because it makes me feel useful).

I then went to a friend's house to pick up a dozen eggs and was delightfully surprised that she had baked me a cake and she and the family sat down and we all had cake and ice cream. What a thing to have no expectations at all (except the eggs) and have someone make that gesture. It really was a wonderful thing.

And people posted on my FB wall, and that's always nice. And my brother called and we got caught up on things.

And I walked the dog and bought her some actual bone bones because all the rawhide my Target sells now comes from China and that gives me the excuse to reduce her rawhide consumption. The bones aren't cheap, but I gave Sally the littlest one (it was frozen) and it kept her busy for about 30 minutes. They told me to take them away from her after she gets everything off so she doesn't splinter the bone, so I did that.

It's going to have to wait

I guess the idea for my next project started with seeing all of the colorful wool things people are wearing at this time of year. Many of them appear handmade, and I think that people like wearing handmade stuff.

Then I saw this Facebook page from Fairysteps and it blew my little mind. Their shoes really strike me as beautiful and all the better because they are handmade. The ones with the buttons are so very cute. Here's a picture from a recent post of theirs:

Wow, huh? Love the low boots, especially. 

I don't know how to work with leather, so my mulling process eventually wandered over to something like this:

There's a site on Etsy (of course) that sells both the soles and the lasts for making stuff like this (well, the shaped bottom part, anyway). I like this idea so much that I'm going to sign up for a wet felting class held in January at one of the local yarn stores. I'll see how much I like the process, and go from there. 

The prospect of making stuff with a depth of color like this from Rosiepink is very appealing. 

They have lots of fun stuff on their site.

HOWEVER.

I've had some angst lately about spending so much time alone between work and hobbies that I don't think I'm going to rush headlong into the wet felt thing immediately. You know, another thing that has me working by myself at home. I spend enough time by myself at home.

Last night I went to a concert by the music director from our church in support of his new CD. I knew many of the people there, but ended up sitting by myself because I guess I didn't look hard enough for someone to sit with. It may have also been the case that I was waiting to be seen and invited to sit. This internal dynamic gives me a lot of anxiety sometimes. I feel like I forget how to be social. 

Fast forward to the intermission, and I easily find several people to chat with. The key? Asking about them. How's things? How's the new house coming along? Duh. It's not actually that hard at all. Yet I struggle. 

But the holidays are hard for me sometimes. I trot out my losses and run them back and forth through my mind. I think about the stuff I want, not the stuff I have. It's frustrating to me that I can't run through a list, check stuff off that is safe and in place and be satisfied with that. It has to do with letting go and trusting the process and I need to work on that. 

I blame part of this on the weather. The cold snap has had me on edge, hoping that everything in my old little house holds together, but it's been fine and it's finally warming up. Still, I'm restless at night and haven't been sleeping well. We might get above freezing today, and I'm grateful.

As far as the wise use of my free time goes, it seems I yearn for more connection, and so should try to do things that get me out of the house. I'll take the wet felting class in January, and see how that goes, but at the same time find some more social things for me to do. There's always people who need volunteers.

Are you familiar with Brene Brown? Really good stuff this week from NPR's On Being show about how being what they called "whole hearted" means showing up and being uncomfortable sometimes. You can't have the highs without the lows. That it's in the times that we struggle that result in the stuff that gives life some of its meaning. So I'm going to do some showing up. 

Hope your Tuesday is grand!

Post Thanksgiving stuff

Thanksgiving is a tricky one if you are single and your family is not close by, in my opinion. I've made arrangements to go visit my brother after Christmas, so didn't really think about traveling for Thanksgiving. 

Growing up, we had a very traditional gathering and meal. The responsibility for hosting would rotate among 3 or 4 households of local family, and we'd have a big meal, and a kids' table, watch football, all that. When I was married, we'd do a mix of having small gatherings at home and traveling. 

Now that I've been single for a while, I am fortunate to get picked up as a holiday orphan. I have to say I'm really thankful for that. This year, we were invited to the parents of friends and I had a really nice day. 

These folks live out of town, and have bought into an arrangement where they have a couple of acres, upon which they've built a totally awesome passive solar off-the-grid house and are part owners/users then of a much larger conservation area that functions as a gated community.  The picture above is what we saw on one of our two walks that day. There's a pine tree growing out of the boulder, but it's a little hard to see in that light.

Mr W came with me. He'll do another Thanksgiving tomorrow, and we talked about the pros and cons of living out there. The preparation, yet the independence. 

A's parents are retired academics who worked in science - biology, I think, and it was really refreshing to hear the awful (in a good way) sciencey puns and to get into a discussions about hot button topics in a friendly environment with like-minded people. 

I even got leftovers. It was a fine day.

Auto Emeritus

Well, after 18 years of loyal service, I have retired my 1995 Civic and purchased a new car. Meet C:

I don't have the heart to get rid of the Civic yet, and it is relegated to the dog's car at the moment. It's not worth anything, but might make a good beater car for Mr W. That phase is only four years away. We'll see. There's plenty of parking on the street outside my house, and it is cheap to keep the Civic. I'm designating the Civic "auto emeritus", like a retired college professor who still hangs around. 

C is a Prius C. The baby Prius. It's subcompact, so about the size of a Honda Fit, which was my other choice, except the Fit just didn't deliver in the gas mileage department. I mean, a small car should get 35-40 miles per gallon, in my opinion, and the fit gets a yawning 30 mpg combined. 

They had two of the trim line (there's four levels) I wanted. I chose this blue color, "Summer Rain Metallic". Cars have come a long way in 18 years in terms of technology. My Civic has airbags, and the SRS light on the dashboard always comes on when I start the car, but after 18 years, who knows if they work or now. C has a bunch of airbags, and that makes me feel safer. 

Here's part of the sticker:

I like that the fuel savings over five years really eats into the price difference between a hybrid and a gasoline engine only car (which was about $3K for what I was looking at). On the down side, it is a little smaller than my Civic. It is a small car. But it has enough room for our stuff if I want to take Mr W and the dog on a road trip. 

I also like how there's all these readouts and calculations that the car's computer does, and one can scroll through the different screens to see information about gas mileage in real time. It also provides feedback as one drives, which I think really does train the driver to get the best gas mileage possible. The key is to drive like a person who is not in any kind of hurry. Avoiding punching the accelerator and then leaving plenty of time to stop (which charges the battery) look to be the way to go. 

We're getting snow right now. Fingers crossed that I don't get in an accident! 

OK, now that that's done...

Sorry for the blogging silence. I've been working on a presentation for work for the last few weeks that has occupied a big space in my mind. The presentation was yesterday, it went very well, and I'm hoping that my boss will tell me in the next day or two whether I'll have my contract renewed and whether my status will be changed from contractor to a "fellow", which would be a little more secure.

My boss and I met with his boss and his boss's boss, who is the Director of the division. There were also two high-up administrative folks there. It was a friendly crowd, but my task was to detail the projects we've done, what we're working on and then talk about future projects to sort of show that I'm valuable to the organization.

My boss and I started talking about these projects a few months ago, and they have to do with genetically characterizing insecticide resistance in the mosquitoes we work with. Yeah, I don't really know that much about it either. But I downloaded about 40 papers and read most of them, and got enough of a basic grasp of the research (it's actually pretty darn interesting) to come up with three ideas for projects we could do.

They all seemed to think these were good ideas, and I was really happy to hear my boss's boss expand on the things I said, making the connection between what we do and the mission of the division.

Things are going well at the moment. It's good to have this thing done and turn my attentions elsewhere. Once I hear for sure that I'll be renewed, I'm going to embark on some home renovations (updated kitchen! new windows! the deck I've been whining about for 4 years!) that I'm sure will provide plenty of blogging fodder. I'm still making bracelets, but still bouncing back from a holiday push I'm not sure was necessary. It's time to start thinking about the garden, and I need to redo my irrigation system this year and shore up those old bookcases I've got for raised beds. I think I can get one more year out of them.

I'm going to try to blog more, and set a 15 minute limit to post. There may be pictures or there may not. Here's one from one of the greenhouses at the Denver Botanic Gardens when Mr W and I went there in December to see the lights.

Puff puff puff

It's been busy!! Not much time to write. I'm participating in a big craft show tonight and tomorrow and have spent the last couple of weeks' worth of free time getting ready for that. All is good, though, and I'm excited to see how my stuff is received.

Mr W had his first ever Band concert, and did fabulously. I'm so glad he plays percussion - I could actually hear him!

Work is super busy at the moment too. Hope things are good in your part of the world and I'm looking forward to catching up on blogs next week some time.

Linda

The Secret to My Success (sort of)

We are in the midst of a very laid back holiday weekend, the kid, the dog, and me. We've walked the dog for about an hour yesterday and today, so I sort of feel like that offsets the long periods of being sedentary. I'm also doing a small amount of cooking, housework and jewelry stuff, so am being reasonably productive. I'd feel weird if I got absolutely nothing done.

We went to my friends J and S's house for Thanksgiving this year and had a really nice time. We were picked up as Thanksgiving orphans there last year and I was glad when she extended the invite again because we had such a nice time. Another friend invited us to their family's gathering as well, and I feel lucky indeed that folks would think to include me and Mr W. I did something a little different and bought dinner rolls from a restaurant in town, and they were really good.

In the last week or so leading up to Thanksgiving, I caught myself starting to go down a line of thinking where I was just starting to despair because here I am, alone still, going into another holiday season. It's been almost 7 years now since the divorce was final, and there are times when I cannot believe I haven't found my mate, my guy, my match, my (dare I say it) soulmate.

And then the thought popped into my head to focus on the have and not on the want. As my kid and I both sit in my warm living room, using our respective laptops, having just had a nice meal, I feel blessed, lucky even, that I have a job and my health. Really, those two things make the rest of it possible. I feel that with a decent job and my health, the magnitude of my happiness rests squarely on my own shoulders. So the idea of taking note of what I have (mostly regarding intangibles, but being able to buy my kid a pair of shoes today as well) instead of the part of my life I want to be done and settled, has helped a lot. I feel more grateful than cheated.

I also talked on the phone with my dad and my younger brother and got caught up with their lives. It was good to hear they are both doing well, although my brother got laid off and like a lot of people is over qualified for a lot of the openings. I'm trying to draw him into selling his woodworking stuff on Etsy. You never know, right?

I'll probably do a separate post saying this, but I'm having a sale at my Etsy shop, 20% when you use the coupon code "Holiday".

More soon

Had a great vacation with the fam. It always makes me introspective and this one was no exception. Lots of thoughts jostling around, and I intend to make some sense of them here :-)

Meantime, here's a picture of me and my little brother, taken while they were here last week. Love those guys.

Above and beyond

I was in an unfamiliar parking lot yesterday, pulled into a parking space too far, scraped the underside of the front end of my car, and bumped the curb. No worries, it's an old car, and I wasn't concerned that there would be any damage. I went on my merry way.

Fast forward to me leaving work at the end of the day. Is that a scraping noise now, from the front of the car? Hmm. The road leading to my building has a low speed limit, so I'm listening to it as I'm driving out. Not good. I stop and look under the car (which my mechanic would be proud of - at least I checked!). Nothing. I drive on, stop again and look again because it's getting louder. Still nothing.

My mechanic has had Graycie the camper van for about a month now, waiting for a part to come in, so I can't just switch cars and deal with this later :-). I call him, and he proceeds to DROP EVERYTHING, including working on the car of a couple whose old VW rabbit is overheating and they want to go out of town.

We drive it, he hears the sound, which by now has diminished, but is still there. He takes off the front tire, causing a bunch of rusty stuff that he said wasn't a safety issue to fall out, puts the tire back on, and we drive it again. Apparently I jarred some stuff loose in the parking lot, and it got stuck in a place where it made the noise. Meanwhile, he's talking about the weight he's lost, his wonderful daughters and his recent bout of gout. Such a great talker - I admire people who can converse so comfortably (but not yak on and on).

All in all, it was about 45 minutes of his time. He didn't charge me. I need to do something. I think a batch of my homemade brownies is in order. It seems inadequate, but he wouldn't charge me.

We also discussed the possibility of them putting Graycie on consignment. We'll talk more about it when I pick her up next week, but I think that's the way to go. It's worth 5-10% or so of the asking price to do it that way, IMO.

Feelin' the love

Tomorrow is my birthday. I say that to set the context here, not for setting out bread crumbs for ducks at the park. I'll be 47. There are two things that I've been thinking about for the last few days. The first is my gratitude that I'm still here. My sister died much too early at 45, and there was a time when I was pretty sure I'd be next and in short order. This translates as being able to let the little things go (often-sometimes). As though I've got some kind of perspective now that allows me to drop the things that aren't worth my time. The rude clerk, uncertainty about this or that, the fact that my house isn't as clean as I'd like.

The other thing is that the shows of birthday love scare me a bit. My dad sent a nice card and a check. He also sent a couple of packets of seeds, which I think is a fabulous idea and will do that for birthday cards in the future. Mr W got me a card, too. This is the first year he's gotten me anything for my birthday without prompting. He bought me a lollipop, too, and offered to do chores for me for a day. A friend came up from Denver last weekend and bought me dinner. We went out last night after spin class to eat and celebrate my birthday. It has been so nice to get the attention. With all of it, I get that feeling that there will be a cost for it. I know that's silly.

I'm happy to be here, and enjoying the ride.

Accelerating

I had a nice outing with friend D the other night, and we were talking about her son, who is graduating from high school and is going away to school next fall. This has brought on some melancholy. These people that we raise, or are raising, that we pour so much of our hopes and dreams and efforts into, are going to leave us. Like they are supposed to. Like we are preparing them to do.

This made me realize that the pace at which Mr W is separating from me and growing up is accelerating. I can feel it. D says she felt it start about this age with her son as well. It's all on track, I mean this is how it's supposed to happen. A normal part of growing up.

I was driving from work to pick him up from school yesterday and got all teary thinking about this, and how grateful I am to be here doing it. I'll have to think of this moment the next time he acts like a bratty tween and questions or want to change everything I ask him to do around the house...

I'm OK

An appointment yesterday to get one last screening concluded a couple of months of checks, rechecks, biopsies, discomfort and waiting. All done, and I am OK on all fronts. I seem to have scheduled most of my annual checks and screenings to happen in the spring, so it's all lumped together.

A couple of thoughts I have about this are the following. First, I am very thankful that I have health insurance that allows me to get the care and not break the bank. If you're new to reading this blog, my sister and my mom both died young of cancer, and I'd like to beat that trend. You can search "Sister Kris" or "Cancer" in the labels to read about that. I'm trying to eat right, exercise and not hold onto too much stress so that I feel like I'm doing what I can to lower my risk. After that, it's fate and I do rest a little better knowing I've done what I can do.

The other thought is that this is how it's going to be. I'm not a hypochondriac, but when I get a twinge, I often think, "Is that something?" And then it's gone and I forget about it. When I go in for the various screenings appropriate for a mid-40's year old woman, I think to myself, "What if they find something? What will I do?" And so I worry some. I realized that, given my family history, every screen will present some kind of hurdle to cross, some kind of test to pass in order to continue. I have gotten a lot better at realizing that not knowing means that I just don't know. As in, I don't know whether it merits worrying or not, so by golly I'm going to whoop it up while I'm waiting. And if I don't whoop it up, then I'll get on with the business of living.

After yesterday's recheck that ended with, "Come back in a year", I walked out to my car, and thought, "I'm OK. I am OK". It was a big relief, although the bar wasn't set very high. It is as thought I've been granted permission to continue and I want to make the most of that.

In other news, it's raining! This actually is news around here. March was so very dry. It's kind of novel, and it's that warm spring rain that smells good and will green things up even more than they were before.

Lastly, here's my tulips yesterday. They weren't all white (that's good) and I really like the pink one in the upper right corner.

I'd dye my hair pink too

When my sister Kris was sick and going through chemo, I was amazed and impressed at how the families on her street rallied and brought them meals several nights a week for over a year.

Because of that, I signed up to be on my church's meal committee. When someone's got a condition where getting meals dropped off would help, the word goes out and we sign up through a website called Take Them A Meal. Easy peasy.

I admit it is awkward for me to deliver the food. I would much rather do a drop and dash than engage people in conversation, for some reason. I guess I feel like I'm not really coming over for a visit, I don't want to impose, I'm aware that they aren't feeling well and I don't want to force them to make small talk. It's been my experience that if they are home and up, the recipient invites me in and does make small talk. I guess if I felt too ill to chat, I wouldn't answer the door...

Anyway, I've been delivering a meal a week for a family for the last three weeks. The first two times, no one was home, but yesterday as I was putting the meal in the cooler on the front stoop, the mom/patient opened the door. I offered to bring the stuff in because it was heavy, and she thanked me. I had my prescription sunglasses on, which make me look like a biker chick, but that's another story, and she said, "I'm sorry, do I know you?" Yikes, strangers delivering food. I flipped my glasses up and said, "I'm Mr W's mom". Oh yes, I didn't recognize you.

When she answered the door, I noticed that she had cut her hair and dyed it shocking pink. I didn't ask, but I presume she'll lose it over the course of the chemo. I thought the pink was such a great idea. It lets her thumb her nose at the disease and the process, and acknowledges the hair falling out with a "bring it on" mentality. Her prognosis is good, and that's always good news. She's got a son Mr W's age.

On my drive back into town, I was grateful for the dose of perspective.

When someone you hardly know dies

I learned through FB that a cousin of mine, who I have not seen in decades, has passed away. In the way that families need to be truthful, but don't want to acknowledge stuff that's really no one else's business, I had heard that she was mentally ill for most of her adult life, and didn't live independently.

Such a tragedy.

The cousin who shared the information on FB had a really nice way of putting it: "God takes those like her directly to his side. She is finally at peace."

Her death reminds me that to some extent, it is a roll of the dice that makes it so we continue down our chosen path in life. That illness and accidents happen to people sometimes in a random way, and there is no guarantee.

I was thinking just yesterday how I have been skirting the edges of contentment again. I love when this happens, when things seem like they are humming along and I'm doing my job as a parent, being productive at work, doing some creative stuff. It's a good feeling indeed. I imagine it's a response, but I had a dream last night that Mr W was in his bed and said he kept hearing noises. I went to the back door (which he can't see when he's in bed), and someone grabbed me from behind. In reality, bestest barky watchdog Sally prevents this from happening, so I am not worried about that particular scenario. It was clearly (in my mind anyway) my primitive lizard brain saying something like, "you think you're feeling good right now? There are so many wonderfully scary things to worry about that could happen to you!" I sent her (my lizard brain is named Alexandria) out for coffee and she'll be back some time later.

Accumulation

Here's this year's version of the my Christmas tree. It was part of a busy day yesterday where I got some stuff cooked to freeze and we rearranged Mr W's room. When I bought this house, 6 years ago, I had the back porch bumped out 4' to make a small room for him. It's 8 x 8, and I'm pleased (relieved) that we were able to move stuff around in such a small space.

Six years! Now I will tell you a tale of woe and subsequent adjustment. When I was married, our Christmas tree was covered with homemade ornaments from my ex's aunt. So when it was time to set up my own tree, I started from scratch. So I went to (where else) Target and bought a bucket of those satin string colored balls, and a bunch of plastic snowflakes. Add a couple of things Mr W made at school and there were the ornaments for the tree. It bugged me at the time, and seemed to be some kind of symbol of what I had lost after getting divorced.

But as time has gone on, and I've perused the after-Christmas sales for quirky ornaments, and have received some ornaments as gifts, I'm good. The one I got from the estate sale across the street, with the red dot, fits right in. I've got a few more ornaments than I put on the tree, and there's just a few plastic snowflakes and satin balls on there now. The tree, bought 3-4 years ago at the Goodwill store, goes up in a flash, I've got the right amount of lights, and the process now gives me satisfaction instead of being a reminder of something lost. As it should be.

In a Christmas ornament related train of thought, we'll be celebrating Christmas at my sister's family's house this year. If you're not familiar with the story, my sister died in 2008 at age 45 of stage 4 colon cancer that was simply detected too late. You can look at the label "Sister Kris" if you want to read more about that. She wasn't a nun, just one of several people of that name we were keeping track of.

Anyway, after my mom died, Kris got all our family ornaments. Now that Kris is gone, they're part of her family's traditions. Still, I'm hoping I can talk to my BIL and see if he'd be OK with me taking a couple. There's on in particular that hung on my mom's family's tree when she was growing up. Not much to look at, but so very sentimental. And along those same lines, my dad called me the other day, and said he's moving to Florida. My initial reaction was "'bout time!" since he's talked about it for years. But he's a little nervous about getting everything either packed up or sold off, naturally. He mentioned that he'd be bringing over some of my mom's old little statues and figurines that he kept but is ready to part with. We'll see how that goes.

My initial plan was to have us just use carry-ons. Hmm. Still undecided. Anyway, it looks like there will be some shuffling of family objects. It's all good.

Finally, here's something I thought my nephews (20 and 22) might like? Maybe...

Home Again

I am back home after my trip to CA for work and a spot of play. It was a good trip. I gave a good talk, and am hopeful that the extra three months of work that my boss is trying to finagle will come through. Or, that I will get a good job before then. I had my classic anxiety dream last night, wherein I am back working at the nature center in Toledo that I worked at (happily) before moving to CO. In the dream, and it is always the same theme, I am back working there, and there is a group of kids coming, SOON, and I need to present part of the day's programing to them without any preparation.

In this dream, though, there were more details, and it was one of the those dreams that seemed to last most of the night. I remember saying, as I have before in this dream, "I sometimes dream that I'm back here to work". Wacky.

Anyway, here are a few shots from the trip. This was much more of a professional/trade show type conference than the academic ones I am used to. This is one of the workers there, and behind her, you can just glimpse the exhibit hall. I had no idea there were so many products to kill mosquitoes with. Must be pretty lucrative, too, because those displays were really nice.

It rained the first day I was there, to my surprise. Here's a genuine west coast snail, trying to get out of the rain by coming up on the sidewalk. Its shell was about an inch across.

I really did laugh out loud when I saw the sign on this Mickey statue. Sure, put up a totally climbable statue and tell everyone to stay off. 

We went to dinner one night at a New Orleans-themed restaurant. I had shrimp and grits and it was really good and really salty. The piano was totally covered with rhinestones, which reflected white in the picture, but you can kind of see on the sides of it.

Around the same area of the restaurant, there was a shopping district and I found this nice purple-flowered shrub. I have no idea what it is.

On to Palm Springs. After the conference, I took a shuttle to the airport, rented a car, and drove to see my SIL, who was visiting family in Palm Springs. I won't bore you with the details of the trip, but everything they say about California traffic is true. There are just so many people packed into that space. Here's a gas station that actually still offers full-serve gas - but it's going to cost you.

One of the botanically (and gastronomically) awesome things about southern CA is that there are citrus trees grown as ornamentals in people's yards. We picked these from the tree in the front yard, and there were also lemons and oranges about. I love that kind of stuff. And they were good, too.

This is the view out the back door of where I stayed. Just lovely. They plant annuals in the winter that we plant in the summer, and then come through as it gets hot and pull them out to leave the desert landscaping to get through those hot summers. It was a really nice visit.

I planted some seeds before I left, and they have germinated. I need to get out today and turn my compost pile again. I'd like to get the soil prepped in one part of my bookcase raised beds, so I can plant peas. It's fun to be thinking about gardening again. I got the job application submitted for the job I really want, and want to send in a couple more resumes to companies that don't have anything at the moment, but might, blah, blah, blah. It'll work out.

Mish mash

 

This is the lake next to the building I where I work.  My little slice of cubeville is on the 4th floor, so there is always a fabulous view. I don't mean to be snarky about being in cubeville, either. At one point, when they were moving our lab to this building, there was talk of our offices remaining in the old building, which would have been a huge pain. So I don't mind doubling up in an office cube meant to be for one person. Anyway, we had a spell of really cold weather at the beginning of the week, and as it warmed up again, into the 40's and 50's, the ice on the lake developed these fissures that now look like someone rode a snowmobile across the lake or something. It's been really cool to see how this water changes, sometimes daily, as bodies of water (even man-made like this one) are kind of rare here.

Today is a kind of gloomy Saturday, but it's warm. There's hardly any snow on the ground, either. I've got a mish mash of things to get done, and Mr W's birthday party is tonight. I need to pick up the food, and shuttle boys to and from Chuck E Cheeses. Indeed, this reminds me I'll need to vacuum out my car before hauling children.  That dog of mine is a one-dog mess generator. There will be a sleepover at Mr W's dad's house, with nerf battles and the like. The x's girlfriend's son, who is 7, is attending as well, and it has been interesting to hear second hand how these two little souls are getting along, after being thrust together. Sort of like instant step-siblings, although not formally. The dynamics are the same, with Mr W kvetching that the other kid hovers, whines, turns the TV channel too much, that kind of thing. And to think that one of my major hopes was to hook up with someone with kids so Mr W would have the chance to develop sibling relationships. I think overall it's good, but there are also times when he's quite happy to be an only child.

I am planning on going to the Denver Art Museum tomorrow.  They are having a free day today, so I'm happily going to go tomorrow and pay the entrance fee to avoid the crowds. Mr W and I went to the Denver Zoo last fall for a free day and it was, well, it was a zoo. Too many people to really enjoy the place, and I can't imagine enjoying an art museum that way. Last night was our First Friday gallery walk downtown, when many of the shops are open late, to search for a birthday present for Mr W.  My plan was to then go over to a nice little restaurant/bar/music venue and get some dinner and perhaps stay for the show, which started at 8:30.  

I really want to be able to do this sort of thing, but I didn't stay for the show. It was bluegrass, which I love to watch, but I'm just not crazy about watching that stuff by myself. I suppose you could argue I wouldn't be by myself, and I watched plenty of singletons walk in to see the show. I feel conspicuous, although I know I'm not. But, I did resist the urge to just change into my PJs after coming home from the dog park at 6, and settling in for a quiet night of knitting.  That counts for something, right?  

One thing I am doing is to sign up for a tiny bit of volunteering. The church I go to had a volunteer form (how convenient!) last week and I signed up to be in rotation for: ushering, doing laundry from the kitchen, cooking meals for folks coming out of the hospital, and something else that I can't remember. I also signed Mr W and I to help at an event for the Food Bank later this month. I say this stuff not to toot my own horn, but to I guess demonstrate to myself that I am doing something to try to meet new people and contribute something. With the gardening muse calling to me again, I really want to parlay some of that interest into something where I do some volunteering and can meet some people. There's a community garden on the way to work that needs volunteers and I'm going to start there.  

Indeed, the thought of starting to plan next year's raised beds has me rubbing my hands together with delight.  I'm going to try to get more vertical structure going this year, as those book cases aren't all that big, I realized after seeing the real estate that one zucchini plant takes up.

Ramble ramble.  OK, I'll stop this rambly post here and get on with the weekend.  Hope yours is fab.

Is there a polite way...

As Christmas approaches, I think a lot of us sort of take stock of what we're thankful for, and perhaps get a little more time to think about things in general. That's been me the last couple of days, for sure.

It's going on three years that I have written about bits of my life in this blog. I appreciate that you have read it, and if you've commented, thanks for that too. It strikes me, though, as still a rather one-way form of communication. To that end, I am curious. Who reads my words? Is there a polite way to ask people who read but don't comment to write a comment to kind of introduce themselves? I feel goofy about asking, yet interested. Of course, feel free to not say anything.

We're going to go to church this evening, and then have nothing really scheduled for tomorrow, except I'm going to make cinnamon rolls and spaghetti and meatballs, and we'll go for a little hike. I thought to myself, "I wonder if this is the last Christmas when I'm planning to color my hair that evening because I've got nothing else going on." Yes, the search for Mr. Right has been on my mind a lot lately. I was downtown shopping on Tuesday and saw couples having fun shopping, where the man was engaged and paying attention to the woman, and it made me hopeful and also struck me as so odd, as though it has been so long since I've been the recipient of that, that I have forgotten how it feels. Boo hoo, poor me. I'll stop right there with that train of thought.

I have so much. I am lucky to be here now, doing pretty much what I want to do. I hope you and yours have a good holiday.

image from here.

In that place

Happy Thanksgiving from snowy Minnesota! I squeaked in as the rain was turning to snow, and am now happily having coffee and chatting about matters big and small with some of my favorite people.

I miss my dog!! I miss my kid, too, but I know he's doing something that is still part of his routine. Sally will be fine, but taking her to the kennel Tuesday made me realize how much I've grown attached to her in this year of traveling less (since I'm not traveling for a long distance relationship).

My brother and SIL are teachers, so it's always good to get their perspective on things. Mr W's been doing so-so work in school lately, and it's food for thought whether the system is serving him, or promoting the "we'll feed you this, you spit it back out" model of education. That's another post, but something I'm thinking about.

We are having turkey, scalloped carrots, spuds, stuffing, fresh cranberry sauce, and something my brother is very excited about - Duck Confit. Duck simmered in duck fat - wow.

This and That

There's a metaphor here somewhere. Something about being able to thrive outside one's comfort zone or something like that. These are some Black Eyed Susans that volunteered to be alongside my garden this summer. The one has an interesting double flowered-ness to it that I liked. I think BES are some of my favorite flowers - so hardy, long lasting, beautiful.

As I've mentioned, we are approaching holiday travel and I'm making trips for both Thanksgiving and after Christmas. Mr W and I will be together from Christmas Eve through New Years, so that will be nice. He'll appreciate not having to be in the all-day day care that is available for folks that have to work. I'll put up my little Charlie Brown tree and some lights in front of the house and am looking forward to that.

Air travel is expensive. And added to it is that I need to board Sally when I go away. She does fine, although she'll hesitate that third time she's got to go in at the end of December. I feel bad, but I'm not going to not travel because of my dog, who has a pretty cushy existence otherwise. For whatever reason, flying from Denver to South Carolina has always been expensive, and there are simply no direct flights available.

I knew this when I started looking for tickets, and ended up paying a lot, but we'll fly at something like 9 am instead of 6 am. As it is a 90 minute trip to the airport in the best weather, having to get to the airport at 4 am is a big deal. We'll have all of our stuff in two carry-ons, and I've chosen seats towards the back of the plane to ensure that there will be room in the overhead bins for our stuff.

And the best bit? My brother and SIL chipped in toward our tickets. I just got the check, and am so grateful. It makes a big difference, and I didn't have to ask for the money; they just sent it. A class act, those two.