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!

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!

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.

I'm still here....

Just wanted to say I'm still here, reading your posts, words just fail me right now.  Every time I think I really should do a post, I start and then erase it all.  So when it comes down to it, all I've got right now is "I'm still here" :)  I'm a strong person. Daily, losing my grandfather doesn't effect me, but deep down inside I know our world has been shaken, I mean he practically lived right down the street, it's not like I saw him twice a year or something.  So I guess the best I can say is that I feel conflicted.... fine, but not fine.  In the words of Taylor Swift "I might be ok but I'm not fine at all"  And when I think I'm fine, I remember putting together project boards for the viewing of the 50 plus cards that he received while he was in the hospital all saying how they knew he would get better and get through this so that people would know their words were heard and appreciated.  Well he didn't get better and he didn't get through it...... so..... crap!  Not fine! lol  But I'm still here!  So keep posting and I'll keep reading, and I'm sure when the numbness goes away I'll have other things to say!

Strong Women

I've been thinking about what it means to be a strong woman and a good role model for the past week. A dear friend and mentor posted a link to a youtube video last week that really got me started thinking about it in a new light. The video was a 47 minute British documentary following 6 women. Old women, in their 70s/90s. It was very inspirational for me and I wish I could link to it here. Unfortunately shortly after I watched the video youtube re-classed it and now I get an error stating 'You are not allowed to watch this from your country' which... is a post for a whole other day. I believe the video was called "FabulousFashionistas". Edit to add Here is a blog article.

Anyway, that's a whole lot of words to say that I went to sick call this morning, and unlike normal sick call visits where I disliked all of the staff and felt talked-down to or misdiagnosed by the doctor, I was very impressed by the woman I saw today.  Even before she opened her mouth I had formed a strong positive opinion of her. She was tall and thin, while still giving an impression of immense strength. She wore a long dark purple broom skirt and a dark Forrest green tank top under a flowy purple shirt. She had long dark hair in a lose braid, shot through with elegant streaks of gray. She was amazingly beautiful and filled with grace. When she spoke to me it was with compassion and understanding. I felt that not only was she actually listening to what I had to say, (rare), but that she also cared about how I felt.

Ultimately while I did not get a diagnosis on the spot, she was sure that there was something wrong. It's such a relief to have a doctor agree with me and not just tell me that the pain is all in my head - which has generally been my experience since high school. Samples have been sent off for testing and in the meantime I have about 4 different antibiotics that I am taking, plus assorted painkillers. The phrase "A cure worse than the disease" seems appropriate here so far. The pills have such strong side effects that I even have a prescription to nullify them. It's too early to tell if I'll feel better or not but it's nice to have something other than the standard "have you heard of pamprin?" or "get some ibuprofen and a heating pad."

Also, I'm really glad that I have such a great mother who fields all of my medical complaints. I have such a strong dislike/distrust of doctors that I tend to prefer my mother's recommendations over going to sick call, (because why waste 4 hours only to get a prescription for free DayQuil?), and it was through her prompting to seek treatment/testing that I finally was able to over come  personal preference and take some responsibility for my health by seeing a doctor. I know that it can be tempting to ignore problems, especially when they go away eventually or fade in and out, but if there is anything I have learned over the past few years it is that procrastination is NOT a good thing. Sure, sometimes waiting is the correct answer, many things do just get better in time on their own, but the decision to wait should be made after careful consideration of the options, and not as a blanket denial that an issue exists.

Just my two cents for the week.

New hair person

I've never been one for having my hair cut regularly. As a kid, it was just so awkward for me--an introvert--to navigate. Do I talk to the person? What if I run out of things to say? What if they don't talk back? What if they need to concentrate? It also didn't help that the place my mom took us to get our hair cut was a beauty school, which meant new people every time we went. It didn't matter if there was someone I actually liked from the previous trip (though there never was) because by the time we went again, they had finished raining and moved on.

After college, my friend found a girl up by her (north of Baltimore, so at least a 45-minute drive for me) who we both adored. She was an easygoing extrovert who we loved chatting with and had no qualms about keeping the conversation going through two hair cuts (both me and my friend, we'd make it a girls day out). The downside was that she was only cutting hair to pay her way through dental hygiene school, which is great that she could do it that way, but left me searching for a new person after she moved on.

Since then, I've just been waiting as long as I could hold out and then sucking it up and going to Hair Cuttery for the sake of convenience. I found one girl there that I liked, but I have no idea if she's still there, she gave me her card to book appointments with her but I do still hate using the phone to call people (especially if I've never called them before) so that did not happen. Now, I'm pretty happy because one of the girls I know at work is a licensed cosmetologist and does all her family and friends' hair and she lives near me! We were chatting one day and I made a comment about not having anybody anymore and she was like "Heck I'll do it!" So I'm going to talk to her this week about setting up a time. She'll even come to my house and do it, that does not get any easier folks! She also has a 5 month old baby, I told her he was most welcome to come if she came to me lol, I love babies. She does kids hair too, which means I'll be asking her to do Joey's while she's here; he's getting shaggy and it's too cold for me to buzz him this late in the year.

Dr. Who

Lyndsay, is this showing anywhere near you???

http://www.fathomevents.com/event/doctor-who-the-day-of-the-doctor

I'm hoping to go with Jessica up here as long as Dan isn't randomly working. It's a Monday evening, I can never remember are you off Mon-Tues night or is that your first night in? If you can you should totally go because then we can pretend we're all sitting in the same theater but different seats while we watch it :) <3