Thursday, December 19, 2013

Responsibility....

Such a beautiful, awful thing!

Update for Lyndsay....  We heard about our house we've been waiting for!  Yay and not yay at the same time!  They approved the short sale, at the asking price, with a settlement of January 31st.  That's the yay part.  However, no seller assistance with closing costs... totally NOT yay!  That means they essentially upped our cost by $7,000 to get into this house.  After three days of "yes we can make this happen" and "no we can't are you crazy!" back and forth... we finally decided on yes we are going to try to make it work.  We can come up with the closing costs, but after we do it is the frugal life for us.  But I'm really hoping that when the dust clears it will have been worth it to be in the kind of house we want to be in.

So, today I handled two medical reimbursement issues we've had.... finally harassed Nate for his social security number so I could handle them myself instead of waiting for him.  Tada, handled!  This afternoon, I am going to withdraw $10 from my savings account which only has $36 dollars left in it and I am going to buy my son a Christmas day outfit at the consignment store because he deserves it and myself Starbucks because I'm going to need it for the days ahead lol  And then I am going to do the responsible thing that married couples do when they make a decision together and not spend any more money on myself personally until we see how this goes.

Here we go!

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Silence

2 AM. I'm sitting in my living room, trying to ignore the general clutter, marveling over all of the Santas in my living room, and enjoying my lighted Christmas tree. It's been a pretty long day, even though it's my day off, it's also the one day when I can do all of my out-of-the-house errands. I'm tired, but happy. I got to hang out with a friend today, eat an awesome home cooked meal, work on my cross stitch for several hours, and watch some really inspirational TV.  (Face Off and Heroes of Cosplay. They are awesome. )

I can't really ask for better. Sure I'm too smart for my job, and I am one phone call in the middle of my sleep cycle away from murdering my boss, but who can honestly say they love their job, really?

I've been having trouble thinking what to write here. I have a craft blog where I write about my knitting (although, haven't done that in a few weeks. ), But the rest of my personal life isn't that interesting. I've been tired and struggling with my health lately, but I don't really want to complain all the time either.  I have a lot of time to think though. My husband is upstairs asleep, and I'm supposed to stay awake until 7 AM.

I'm really excited. I think Aaron and I are really going to enjoy Christmas this year, and I'm already looking forward to next year.  I'm starting a refresher course on January 5th, which means my joyful return to a normal day time five-day a week work schedule. In April there is Stitches South and the Atlanta Renascence Festival. ( I haven't been, people say it's good, and big, but can it compare to Maryland??).

 Amanda and I are going to try to sew costumes for the fair. I want mine to double as a cosplay of the white which from Hansel and Gretel.




 It's ambitious I know, but I've become convinced that the best way to become really really good at stuff is to just jump in feet first and always try to do the best you can. I'm hoping to do some simpler sewing projects first (project bag, pillow, less crazy things, you know?), but once the Ren Fair outfits are in the bag, I really want to turn my eye to leather. My ultimate goal is to learn how to make professional quality leather corsets!

In addition, I've decided I want to try to cross stitch a few things to decorate with for the 4th of July, and if anyone has watched Heroes of Cosplay or Face Off, then you wont be surprised to know that for my summer crafting attempts, I want to get some clay and latex, and try my hands at sculpting and fabricating! They sell these net screens that you can put over a garage door that I want to get, so I can use my garage as an art studio  with lots of fresh air and light, without having to share it with all the bugs!

Anyway, that's what has been going through my head this week!

Monday, December 2, 2013

Motivation

I have one last Christmas present to knit. I still have presents to buy and wrap, but only one more knit project that I'd like to have done before Christmas. "It's the only project I'm going to work on until it's done" I tell myself, "That way, even if it's not done by Christmas, I will be almost done". It's a good idea right? Except I'm already tired of the project, despite not having worked on it very much the last two months. Progress continues slowly when I am working on it, which is not very motivating, in fact the slow progress is one of the reasons I'm tired of the project. So, naturally, I need something to motivate myself, as if a deadline wasn't enough, I need something to keep me working on it. I think my idea of motivation is going to do more harm than good.

I bought more yarn.

The idea of having yarn and patterns ready to go as soon as I finish this project, in theory, should be great motivation to keep me moving. The fact that it's new yarn I haven't tried yet, should be motivation. The fact that I'll be knitting things that I will be able to enjoy myself (instead of giving them away and never seeing them again), should be motivation.

We'll have to see what happens.