Quick Update

Tuesday night I experienced a wonderful manic episode in which I made the living room in our house presentable to the guests who were going to be visiting on Wednesday while I was at work. As a result, we now feel we can be ready to have an actual housewarming gathering within the next couple weeks.

Wednesday night, after getting home from knitting and having the house to myself (with DH being out and social with those friends who'd visited earlier), I spent nearly an hour catching up on financial stuff that desperately needed doing. I didn't finish on Wednesday, but it sure felt good to get through so much of it.

Tonight, I finished entering all of our receipts and making sure we had records of everything my credit cards were saying we had spent. Still more work to do to reach the level of completion that makes me giddy, but I've reached happy.

I'm beginning to think that lots of stuff might actually be "put away" before our tentative housewarming (on August 8), as opposed to merely "hidden away". This makes me contentedly satisfied. :)

Now if I could just get myself organized enough that I feel like knitting again...

Can't Sleep

... so tomorrow we're moving. It's really happening. It's been confirmed with the movers and everything.

I'm freaking out that important stuff will likely be lost (cuz we left lots of the important stuff to pack absolutely last, due to needing it in the meanwhile), and that I won't be able to sleep at the new place due to the toilet in the master bathroom constantly running at an astonishing decibel level, and that we'll never be able to use our new garage because the owner and the property management company still haven't managed to cut the padlock off the outer door (the key they gave us didn't fit the lock)...

Not to mention all the other numerous problems with the place discovered after we signed the lease... or all the problems we knew about BEFORE signing the lease that we were assured the owner would take care of within a couple days (this was weeks ago) and that are still problems...

But we'll figure it out. It'll work out. It's got to.

DH now has books on DIY plumbing and electrical stuff, so things like the exposed outlet in the closet should be easy to remedy, and maybe he can learn how to stop the toilet from constantly running as well. Or at least how to fix the water shut-off valve to stop the water from getting to the toilet in the first place...

Oh, the joys of home ownership without the benefits of actually owning. Sigh. If we owned, we wouldn't be hesitating about fixing this stuff at all... but because we don't own, we're not authorized to make the fixes (or hire someone to make the fixes even), so we're having to put up with them and it really really really .... yeah.

Anyway, maybe I can get back to sleep now that I've done a little more packing of the "I need that tonight, but I'll need it tomorrow night too..." stuff... And stopped the TiVo from recording a random Paid Program that it hadn't been told to record and wasn't listing among the "now playing" items, even though it was actively recording and the receiver even listed the name of it on its display (which it only does when it's recording something we told it to -- the suggestions being recorded merely have the red-light dot thingie... no name...)... but anyway...

Yeah... Anxiety... causing mania... causing anxiety... deadly cycle.

Sanity Check

I'm dropping out of NaKniSweMoDo09, for my own mental health.

NaKniSweMoDo (National Knit a Sweater a Month Dodecathon) is something one of my knitting friends talked me into joining this year, as she wanted to knit 12 sweaters this year and wanted companionship in doing so. I was doing well to start with -- finished my first sweater in January, and nearly finished Silas' sweater in February (finished it finally in March), and I've started the third... but I've found myself dreading working on sweaters, especially as it's getting warmer here.

Plus, I have this little nagging voice in my head saying "why knit sweaters when you're trying to lose weight? They won't end up fitting right unless you fail at your goal..." ... and that nagging voice has won.

Instead, I've given in to the joys of knitting shawls/wraps. I'd been avoiding this as it takes about half the yarn needed to do a sweater, but the only yarns I had in quantities enough to do shawls were in sweater quantities and I didn't want to break them up.

But now I'm working on Cozy using Berroco Ultra Alpaca yarn on size 8 needles, with an apparently discontinued colorway ("Camel Hair") that I had 4 skeins of just laying around. ... No photos yet, but I'll post some once I get a bit further through. I'm LOVING this. I can't seem to get enough of knitting it. :)

Open Letter to that driver on 680 this morning

Dear angry Hispanic dude,

I apologize if I did anything to frighten you when I tried to leave the exit-only lane in order to merge onto the freeway this morning. I checked my mirrors and looked over my shoulder, and all I can say is that you weren't there. I put on my directional indicator, and still you weren't there. I started to pull into the lane, and suddenly you're there.

I have some suggestions for you.

First: breathe. Relax. You're going to give yourself a heart attack if you keep getting so angry about little things such as other people getting in the way of you doing whatever you want without letting them know what you're attempting to do. That's right, your indicator wasn't on. It's my firm belief that you were in the next lane over and had decided you needed to get into the exit lane (which you subsequently did), and had pulled into the lane next to it without signaling your intention and without caring that I was already signaling and was on my way over. That lane was empty before I started over.

Second: it will do you no good to focus all your attention on me, turn to face me and scream at me out your window, while driving 65mph on a major freeway offramp. You know, traffic tends to do unexpected things like slow or stop, especially on offramps. You might want to be paying attention to traffic rather than focusing on me. Especially when you just did something stupid that you're blaming me for.

I thank you, however, for not following me to my destination or otherwise seriously trying to intimidate me. Such things are truly counterproductive and you can bet it wouldn't have turned out well for you in the long run. As it is, I will merely have a day filled with wonderment at how some people can take something that should've been resolved by a deep breath and accepting that nobody's perfect - even you - and turn it into something that could ruin someone's day by making them dwell on it.

Please, for the sake of yourself, your family, and all the other drivers on the road, calm down.

Regards,
that fat gringo woman who you're now telling people tried to ram your car today

Considering Stash

I've decided I need a new outlook in regards to handling my stash. This whole embargo thing, while it may sound good on the surface, and may be well-intended... well, it's not really making me happy.

I've found the big problem with the embargo is that I have a whole ton of yarn taking up space that doesn't make me happy and doesn't inspire me to knit. I've only got a little yarn that inspires me. Of course, I was good with the embargo conditions, that it doesn't require me to use up my stash before restashing... but it has gotten me into a mindset that's not helping my overall feeling toward my stash.

A couple threads on Ravelry pointed me toward this article on "Slow Stashing". I've already started reviewing my stash as listed on Ravelry and moving a few more items over to the Trade page (for trades only, not for sale) that otherwise I'd be keeping in my stash simply because I didn't feel like I could ask dollar amounts that'd make the shipping cost worthwhile.

This in part came about because I just completed my first BIG trade. Or, rather, I just delivered a huge box of yarn to the post office and I expect to receive one in return in about one week's time. I'm getting rid of around 8 pounds of mostly acrylics (as well some cotton blends and one wool) that I was probably never going to get around to knitting, and getting in return a bunch of alpaca and a skein of superwash wool. Doing this made me happy in ways I never would have expected. So the ideas brought forth in the "Slow Stashing" article just made absolute perfect sense to me.

When I get home, I'm going to physically sort my stash and make sure I've got everything listed (and listed accurately) and sorted into "happy" and "unhappy". I'm also actively looking into Yarn Wanted listings, peoples' wishlists, etc, to see about re-homing some of my yarn to people more likely to appreciate it. Over the weekend I'll probably also try to look into trades (which are more complicated to get started)...

I think I'm also going to try to overcome the sweater anxiety and actually cast on a cardigan or pullover. Just have to decide which of my (already planned) projects to do... :)

Today was such a good day.

At least it started that way.

Breakfast with the parents, noon-time course to prepare me for volunteering at the Animal Rescue Foundation, afternoon at Oktoberfest in Concord...

Then driving home from Oktoberfest, we encountered *them*.

Now, I'm not a confrontational person. If I know you and I disagree with you, I'll let you know and I'll even argue with you - sure. But I don't do that with random people on the street. I avoid such things as much as possible. I rarely even say "good morning" when crossing paths with a stranger.

But today, on the drive home, on the corner at Willow Pass and Market, there were people on the median and on the sidewalk waving around their annoying yellow signs that read "Yes on 8!" and "Protect Marriage!"

There was nothing I could do. Very little thought went through my brain before I discovered my window had been rolled down and I was shouting at them.

I asked "why the hate??" and they responded that it wasn't hate, it was love for their families. They want to protect marriage. "Protect it from what?" ... the answer? "well, if we let them marry then they're going to have to teach gay marriage to our kids!" (Note: yes, it was a complete change of subject. Still haven't ever received an answer to what they're trying to protect marriage against)

Seems this immigrant (accent was definitely from south-of-the-border) doesn't want his kids thinking it's OK to be Gay cuz then THEY might decide to be gay too.

If Silas hadn't been there to tell me the light had changed, I'd probably have wound up having angry people honking their horns behind me.

NOBODY decides to be gay. NOBODY. Nobody would choose such ostracization.

I'm generally an open minded person. I respect the rights of people to hold beliefs that are contrary to my own. However, I take serious issue to people holding beliefs that are based on lies or misconceptions, and persisting to hold on to those beliefs after logical reasoning is presented to them that invalidates the bases of their opinions.

The only real thing I refuse to tolerate is intolerance towards groups of people based on stereotypes and misconceptions, and imposing those intolerances on others. Heck, amending the state CONSTITUTION to remove a basic human right from one specific group of people simply out of fear. So yes, I admit. I'm intolerant of intolerance. That's a hypocrisy I'm willing to accept.

And after this encounter, I'm having a hard time calming myself. I've just been forced to see, for the first time, face-to-face, that such ignorance and intolerance exists not only in my state and my city, but also on the roads I travel every day... and in people who are so willing to be so outspoken about their intolerance. Outspoken, and PROUD to be intolerant. How can I reconcile that with my idealist perspective on life?

So please. Any of you in California...

Help us stop the hate. Vote NO on 8.