Lost: Ernie Sweater

I am FREAKING OUT because Ernie is missing. Several people (who think they are funny) have suggested looking in my car. Yes, ha ha, my car is a mess... But Ernie is not in there. I looked. Under stuff and everything.
This is not a laughing matter!! I only have 14 days before my brother's birthday and Ernie is still lacking a completed front and I have all of those ends to sew in!!
Ack!!
He must be at home.
Maybe under the bed?!?

It's just that I put him aside for a few days because some other knitting happened... some important knitting, actually. Like the baby surprise jacket that I was going to knit for Colby's baby... before it pissed me off and I re-appropriated the yarn into a clapotis.

Hey, anything that needs to be frogged more than four times obviously wants to be something else.


And look how pretty!!

A-hem.

So anyway, this week is That Bad, Bad Man's birthday... and I'm having a difficult time deciding what to do for him. I have a few ideas, but can't decide on anything. He is impossible. Completely impossible. (When I asked him what he wanted for his birthday he said, "A new body" because his is "worn out." I'm working on it, but do you know how much yarn it takes to knit a whole entire man?!?) All of the ideas I have seem inadequate. He is so lovely and sweet and he works so hard. He deserves a happy birthday.
If anyone has any ideas about what to do for a lovely, impossible, Bad, Bad Man please let me know.

SP13 Answers!!

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
I am a sock yarn fanatic... and love pretty much everything. I tend toward superwash wool because I am terribly lazy. The only thing I don't like is scratchiness.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?
I have a needle roll that I love, and I carry some around with me in case of a knitting emergency!!

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?
I have been knitting for almost ten years, but have become a "capital-K-Knitter" in the last two years or so. I still consider myself intermediate, but willing to try new things.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
I do have an Amazon list

5. What's your favorite scent?
Real lavender... and also vanilla

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?
Oh yes. I love pretty much anything chocolate... and Jelly Belly's

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?
I don't really have any other crafty things in my life, but I like to watch people spin!! At some point I would like to learn to sew and quilt, but right now I'm happy just knitting.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)
I like a lot of music... right now I bounce between stuff you'd hear on an iPod commercial and rap. (It's my guilty pleasure, don't judge me). And yes, my stereo can play MP3s.

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?
Purple, green, blue and pink. I don't really like orange.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?
I have a daughter, Bean, who is 12 and we have two cats.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?
No ponchos, I'm fluffy enough... but I do like scarves and fingerless gloves/wrist warmers!

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?
Socks.

13. What are you knitting right now?
A sweater for my brother, 2 pairs of socks, a second clapotis, a big blanket, a square for an afghan... and then just "on the needles" I have the Lizard Ridge afghan, 2 sweaters for me and a blanket for Bean.
Some have said I have difficulty in follow through. I have no idea what they're talking about.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?
Yes!

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?
I loooooove my Addi's, but I have some Daisy straight needles that are plastic that I love too! I generally knit on circular needles.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?
Yes, both.

17. How old is your oldest UFO?
Three years... and I WILL finish it. Someday. But not today.

18. What is your favorite holiday? What winter holiday do you observe?
I love Valentine's day. It's my all-time favorite... we do observe Christmas. From a distance and with a lot of wine.

19. Is there anything that you collect?
Besides debt? No.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?
Nothing that I can think of...

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?
Intarsia and Fair Isle

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?
Yes!! I wear a size 10 shoe.

23. When is your birthday?
June 18

24. Are you on Ravelry? If so, what's your ID?
Yup - Jillo

Here She Goes...

So the homemade laundry soap has been such a success that I thought I might branch out a bit...

TURNS OUT that homemade dishwasher soap is even easier to "create" and I already have the ingredients on hand. (Equal parts Borax and washing soda, 2tbsp per load, plus distilled white vinegar in the rinse). Hot Damn! I have 2 little gel pouches of Cascade left, so this is good news indeed.
I am feeling a little Hippy Crunchy about this, but I am poor, poor, poor right now and stretching that dollar is a necessary thing.

I have been following my friend Sally's lead and looking to readjust things in my life that do not fit within my value system.
Which combines nicely with my therapist's mission to get me to value myself. (Ugh. Can't we just talk about my daddy-issues? Or sex? Don't therapists love to talk about sex? I can talk about sex all damn day long, just don't make me "value myself.")

I value my free time, and want spend that free time taking care of myself (because I deserve to be taken care of, ok? Shut up therapist voice, you are interrupting again!!) rather than spending that free time concocting ways around spending money at the grocery store.
In the past, I have justified spending extra money in order to "save time" that could be spent on myself, but it's about time and money these days.

Beyond this temporary poverty, and while I am not a necessarily thrifty gal - that is, it would not phase me at all to drop, say, $2000 over the course of a year on yarn - I am a gal who is very concerned with having the $2000 to drop on yarn. Really, all money spent not on yarn (and travel and lunches out with friends and also massages) is wasted money (stupid mortgage pament). So I am going to be examining my extraneous (ie, not yarn and lunch and massage) expenses and finding low cost, time-efficient ways to change. So while I will not be making my own refried beans (apologies to Anna, but seriously? It's $.89 a can to NOT have to do it yourself) I will be looking for cheap and efficient ways to replace money wasters.

AND, green bonus, these replacements are better for the environment.

So from time to time I'll be posting about these things... because nothing happens unless I blog it, right?!?

He Had me at "Hello"

This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

How can I not love this man?

That line, "while we breathe, we hope" just makes me shiver.

Obviously messages of hope and endurance speak to me, especially right now.

Vote!! Vote!!

It's like Christmas only free!

I have to start this voting story with the "getting dressed" process this morning. First I couldn't find my dress... I did laundry all weekend to test out the homemade laundry soap and so all of my laundry is really, really clean. (One load got washed a second time accidentally).

So at 7:40 this morning I am storming through the house in a towel looking for the basket that contained my tye-dye dress. It did occur to me to just wear something else, but that was my lucky dress, my Voting Dress and who knows what might happen if I didn't find it. And also my socks match it. And so it is perfect, and also comfortable and it makes me feel good.

I could use some feel good.

(Sen. Obama will be relieved to know that I found it).

And despite the line it really did feel good to vote. Everyone was in such a jovial mood! On the way in to the church two people stopped me to admire the dress (see!!) and everyone was sort of bouncy and smiley. Everyone said "good morning" to everyone else. In line three people stopped to admire my buttons. (One is from my radio station and it says "I listen, I think, I vote" and the other is from NPR and says "I listen. I vote").

There were people of all ages and races there. And everyone was smiling!! It was like Disney took over (except that I was allowed to vote Democrat). I half expected little birds and bunnies to be milling around waiting for the poll workers to break into song.

I waited for about 20 minutes and then I voted and then I left, sticker by my voting buttons, a sense of calm around me.

I know that I live in a red state.
It's so red that my pitiful little vote is unlikely to make much of a difference at all. But I voted.

I am critical of the Bush administration. I am completely against the war. I think that reproductive rights are just that, rights. Not privileges. I think that standards should be higher in schools, that taxes should be higher on things like cigarettes, alcohol, Oreos, Twinkies and Pop Tarts, that the people running our companies, churches and schools should be held accountable for their actions and that health care should be accessible.

And none of that is likely to be addressed directly in the next 4 years regardless of the outcome of the election.
I know that.
But a baby step forward is better than a baby step backward.

And isn't it wonderful to live in a country where we can openly question and participate in our government!
So go, participate.

Bah. And Also Humbug.

Bad news at the lawyer's office today.
I thought I was getting a call to come in and get my money... but they forgot to do something and it is just dragging the process out. Jeff's mom is as mad about this as I am, and we all know that she is quite a bit less patient and, you know, tactful than I am. I'm sure that the woman who forgot to do her job got quite an earful.

So the correct papers will be filed by Thursday and I will (allegedly) have my check 4 weeks from that date. So just 4 more weeks of serious poverty and then I can relax.

As I was walking out of her office she said, "Well, it will be a very Merry Christmas anyway!"

No.
It won't.

Christmas and I are not BFF's anyway, but my HUSBAND died this year. And he didn't just die, he became a totally different man first and then he died. And then I found him. And then I had to stop being mad and then I had to actually start to feel all of the crap that I have been categorizing and hiding for the last 2 years because all I had time for was the anger.

And now he's gone and I can't even have any fucking CLOSURE already.

And I don't care how big that fucking check is, it's not big enough to take THAT and turn it into a Merry Fucking Christmas.

Don't get me wrong, the money is nice. And you all know that I will spend it. Quickly. Perhaps even merrily from time to time. And I'm not going to spend this holiday season in bed with a bottle of Southern Comfort. I'm going to do what I've been doing this WHOLE TIME.

I'm going to make the best of it. And there will be times that will be happy, but that doesn't mean that I won't be hurting. And grieving. Because apparently along with "make the best of it," "grieving widow" has also been added to my job description. It's mostly a status thing, apparently.

In other news, I made laundry soap following the directions here and am quite pleased with the thrifty-ness and also the cleanliness of homemade laundry soap.

Pledge Drive and Grief

Oh Pledge Drive is almost over. I thought I was done with the marathon days, but this drive has pulled me right back in.
And fall drives are difficult for me because of Jeff...

It will be such a relief to not have to face them in this way again. No more fall drives as an employee. No more of the same pep talks and drive jokes. No more of the hours and hours in the control room where Jeff and I spent hours and hours, working together and falling in love.
Work was where I learned to trust him. Where I learned that he always followed through with things he said he would do. Where we both spoke the same language and where we were both good at what we did.
Work was where I learned that he was intelligent and funny and sarcastic. I learned that he had a dirty mind and an eclectic taste in music. I learned that he had a generally positive outlook on things.

This week I am remembering these things. And these things are painful.

In the end we didn't speak the same language about anything. In the end there was nothing left of the good and calm and hard-working and funny man.

To speed through this recovery of mine I try to force myself past the good times. I try to pretend that the Jeff-turned-Bartleby that ended up in my den is all that there was to him.

But that's a lie.
I do remember him. And I do remember loving him, and him loving me. I remember the things that we had together that made us want to bind our lives together. I remember these things and I mourn them this week.
I thought by now that some of this would have faded. It's been seven months and I am getting my life back, but in some ways this grief feels brand new - and in some ways it is.

I am past the shock. Past the initial crisis. Past a good portion of the numb.
Getting through that has made room for the grief to come. Unexpected and unwanted, but present.

So if I have seemed a little withdrawn that's why. I'm OK. I am.
I'm just working through the process.
My friends have been amazing and supportive and have given me room to cry and a place to laugh and I love you all for it.