It ends well, I promise.

I missed another knitting meeting tonight. Bean called me from school and said she was sick and wanted to come home. She seems to get sick every time she spends more than 18 hours at her dad's house... it's getting a little old. The husband was off today so he picked her up and got her situated. I finished my work and brought juice home. She feels fine, she's just still in the sniffy, coughing stage.
Sick kid aside, you wouldn't want to be at my house tonight.
The trash goes out Monday nights, so Monday nights are cat poop nights. I am in charge of the removal of the cat poop... except that last week the husband (in a shocking display of husbandly goodness) took cat poop duty. And then neglected to tell me that we were low on litter. I can't dump the old without replacing it with the new, ya know?
But it wouldn't be a Monday night without something really disgusting, right? So I decided to clean anything furry out of the refrigerator. You'd think that since we have only lived here since December and I rarely cook that it wouldn't be so bad. You'd be wrong.
So I dumped and scraped and soaked everything in the sink in bleach and then I put it all in the dishwasher and took out the trash.
Then I washed my hands. Well. With really hot water.
And then I had a snack. I found these at Wal Mart this afternoon. Honest-to-Bob 100-calorie packs of Hostess Cupcakes. (Pen included for scale - each one is about the size of my iPod shuffle). They're the cutest, tiniest little cakes but they're good and actually pretty satisfying and they do have a tiny cream center. They also come in yellow cake and carrot cake. Yeah, man.
I licked every bit of chocolate frosting off of the cellophane, too. Every one of those 100 calories was mine and I was not about to throw any of them away.
I have been knitting, but those pics are for tomorrow... I'm having a yarn porn Tuesday just for fun... expect some Blue Moon to make an appearance!
I will also be buying litter on the way home, the cat poop situation will be resolved and then you will want to come to my house.
And knit and drink some wine or tea.
And you can have some diet-friendly cupcakes, too.

I'm not Catholic anyway.

I failed my Lenten challenge. I am weak.

I ordered needles online last night... and then because KnitPicks ships free with orders over $45 I had to find some other stuff to buy (what a challenge). I noticed that their KIP bags were on clearance and that they weren't even listing some of the bags individually anymore, so I panicked and ordered the set. I've been contemplating this purchase for some time... it took the possibility that I couldn't have it ever to push me over the line.

I am weak. I am happy, but I am weak.

I am going to try to keep this a one-time failure. Honestly, I was ordering online WAY too much. Not just yarn, but clothes I don't need, book orders from Amazon, music from iTunes... and if I am running to retail therapy enough that it's costing more than actual therapy then I need to take a giant step back and think about things a little deeper.

I need to de-clutter my life. I need to have a yard sale like Crazy Aunt Purl and purge from my house (and my life) everything that is not working for me. (Except that I hate... HATE... having garage sales). Maybe I need to group things together and eBay like Kerri. Surely someone would pay $10 plus shipping for a box of my crap! Maybe selling online could be as addictive as buying online!

I'm really itching to start my Rockin' Sock Club socks... but I have socks in progress now that I need to finish before I do anything else. I also have the socks that I started with Andie. She is still moving along with her socks... I'm trying to keep pace with her so that I can show her the elements of a basic sock as she is ready for it. Denise wants to learn socks too, so I told her to go to the LYS (the only place I know of that you can buy sock supplies in town) and I would show her the next time we got together. Socks are fun. And portable. And satisfying. I did have a dream last night that I was working on the clapotis that I started so many weeks ago... sheep in a jeep! If all of my UFO's start showing up in my dreams I'm screwed!

I'm quite the social gal!

I went to a wine bar in town tonight with Denise and Andie and Andie's husband. It was all very nice and the wine was good and the cheese plates were fantastic... but it was soooooooooooo expensive. I spent almost $50. And it was just me. Seriously. We decided it would be less expensive (and more quiet) to DIY the whole wine bar experience at home. I ordered bruschetta - usually a simple and safe choice... it was two pieces of garlic bread with the BIGGEST SHRIMP EVER on top with greens on op of that. It was good, but the shrimp! Seriously, it was as big as a banana. I enjoy shrimp. I do. But my favorite shrimp is the small variety. Salad shrimp, cocktail shrimp - great. Shrimp that has to be cut with a knife and fork? Way too fucking big.

Tomorrow I'm having lunch with S at a restaurant that has really good spring rolls. Like, so good that I'm always tempted to just order spring rolls. The husband will be working so I'll go home and (knit) study for my test on Wednesday and (knit) write my paper that is also due on Wednesday. It is always an option to just not go to class on Wednesday and stay home and finish. I am not a great shining example of what a student is supposed to do. I rarely read the assigned reading, I put assignments off until the last possible second and I skip class constantly. But I get good grades and I'm learning what it means to be a social worker. That's the important thing, after all.

Monday there is a knitting meeting. I need to finish my socks so that I can get on to my Socks That Rock!! I was reading the STR blog and someone wrote that she used different needles on different parts of her sock. BRILLIANT!! She used 0's for the toe, 1's for the foot and 2's for the leg which allows for a different fit for each part of the sock. GENIUS I tell you. Absolute genius. I am totally thinking of forgetting the whole lent thing and ordering more needles.

If I had not spent all of our money at the wine bar (and also booking our Chicago tip) I would. I might anyway. I am not a strong girl.

IT'S HERE! ITS HERE!!!

My Socks that Rock have officially arrived. I keep stopping whatever I'm doing to touch the yarn. (Yes, Lara, you can touch the yarn too!!!)

I love it, love it, love it!! And I think that the pattern is not going to be so difficult as to be above my knitterly skills. Yay me!

I'm not posting pics... yet... because there are other "spoiler" sites out there and also because my camera goes through batteries like I go through Diet Dr. Pepper and I currently have no new batteries.

I am so excited about this delivery that I find myself with little else to say... I am knitting away on Andie's Crusoe socks so that I can free up my size 2 needles, but I have about a bajillion things to do before my next class on Wednesday so I'm not sure how much knitting I'll get through this weekend.

I'm off to fondle my yarn... again, not a euphemism. Stop that.

Week in review...

Still no Rockin' Sock Club delivery. I check every day to see if anyone else is posting about theirs! I can't wait to see what I get... I'm working furiously on the socks that Andie and I started together, and I'm also working on her final pledge drive sock just trying to free up some needles!

I feel like it has been months since I posted, but it's only been a few days.

Bean was really mad at me for going to Kerri's for the Oscar's. We talked on Monday morning and she said she felt like she never gets to see me. I'm not sure where that's coming from, as we spent the whole day together on Sunday. THE WHOLE DAY. And the husband has been really clingy and weird lately, too. I feel like they would superglue themselves to me if they could and am feeling a little smothered by them both. So when I hear that I'm "not spending enough time" with either one of them it makes me feel a little panicked and guilty. This fatigue thing has left me with little energy or tolerance for anyone.

We're ok, though. We all talked about how we were feeling and we came to some compromises and then Monday we all went out for dinner as a family. Apparently what she wants is for us to look like families in the commercials. Out for dinner or bowling or mini golfing, talking and laughing and happy all the time. We talked about the fact that while we could certainly make an effort to do those things that kind of image wasn't something realistic that could be maintained over a long period of time. Life is messy and inconvenient and tiring and fake happy was as unsatisfying as no happy.

We did have a good time at dinner and there was laughing and joking.

Tuesday was the first day Cubs tickets were on sale and that is what I had been waiting for to book our Chicago trip. We have tickets now for Wicked and a Cubs game and we're staying in a nice hotel within walking distance of Navy Pier. Yay me, right?

Nope. Mr. Wonderful was angry at me for booking the trip without talking to him about it again. We had already talked about dates, talked about what we wanted to do and about how much we could spend. I didn't realize that our "discussion phase" was not over. He is excited about the trip, of course, but I thought that would be his first reaction, not his last. So that was disappointing.
Then on Tuesday I also found out that this small paper that was due on Wednesday morning wasn't such a "small" paper after all and I stayed up until 2 to finish it.

Class all day Wednesday and then I went home and slept until he came home. We couldn't decide what to do for dinner - and I was groggy from being asleep so hard - so we ended up at a diner. I had french toast and he ate my bacon. And that is not a euphemism, so stop it. At the diner we ran into one of my husband's friends from high school... joy.
My husband was, um, rebellious in high school. He participated with the chemically altered crowd. He hadn't seen his "friend" in ten years or so and this guy looked like he was still of the chemically altered variety. He ended up sitting with us and at one point looked at the husband and said, "Married, man, what the hell? Why'd you do it?"
Seriously? You wormy little fucking tweaker?
I could not finish my french toast fast enough.

Tonight I'm on the air for All Things Considered so I get to play "news girl" for the evening. Tomorrow is a social work conference and the book club. Welcome to the first time in a year and a half that I did not finish the book. Luckily, nobody else did either.
I need a nap.

Thank you, Andie

I got to sleep in this morning. All the way to 8:15!! Andie came in and worked the first few hours of my shift and I only have to be here for a few hours.
The plan today is to go to Target... Bean needs a new swimsuit and while I just bought her a new one she tried it on last night and it doesn't fit. She's too... um... womanly for it. I need a drink. So we're going to check the adult section and see if there is something that is appropriate. She mentioned that she is developing a little bit of a tummy. I told her that she is an appropriate weight, she just needs to get more exercise so that weight is muscle instead of fat. I think she is afraid that she will end up looking like me. I certainly am. I think I can get her to be more active with me without sending her to the therapist when she's 14. Fingers crossed!!
After Target we're going to the YMCA for some treadmill time and then Bean is going to swim and I am going to knit. I have tinked half of the row I screwed up on my cabled hat. I want to scream.
In the spirit of working out today I stopped at Quik Trip for my daily caffeine and picked iced tea (with LOTS of ice) instead of diet Dr. Pepper and string cheese and a single pack of cashews instead of something sugary or a breakfast sandwich. Good fats and protein. (That was good, right Jackie?? Right? At least better, right Jackie? Right?).
I have learned that I need to "automate" breakfast and lunch... I just haven't decided what that should be yet. And I need to go to the store... it's cold enough that I think I can get the stuff I need at Target and leave it in the car while we're at the gym.
Then tonight is Oscar night. I'll be knitting.

Crap.

My cabled hat is not going well. I made it through row 19. Slowly and painfully through row 19. Then I realized that I had done the whole row backwards.
Crap.
So now I'm tinking the whole row. Stitch by painful freaking stitch.
I can tink five or six stitches at a time before I have to put it down again.
This is going to take forever.