the best part about being sick is the knitting

I always thought I was cheerful and optimistic. I have lately, however, come to the disgruntling realization that although I can be chipper, perky, happy - it usually is fairly dramatic, even when it's a positive sort of dramatic, and it's not particularly sustainable. I have been feeling more and more like my default mode is a negative one - when someone asks how I am, the first thing out of my mouth is a complaint. When I finish a movie, it's the parts I didn't like, that I mention.

I am straying from the 14-year-old-me thought that total and complete BLISS is what I am going for - I'd like my life to be pleasant, overall. Pleasant is what I am shooting for as my default mode. Not that I can't be pissed off, displeased, annoyed, or unsatisfied - but I want to CHOOSE those times. It's the default mode I am most concerned with.

I'd like to think it's most habit - not that I really am unhappy, just I've gotten into this negative rut. I'd like to think it's habit, because THAT, I can do something about.

For any goal, I like to have measurable objectives - but - this time around, I think I am just going to say that whenever the occasion comes up to give my opinion, I'm going to say something positive FIRST.



Next time we'll tackle the idea of intellect over emotion, control over emotions, choosing when to cry, and how to get what I want next week.

as for now, I am going to do more dishes, take vitamin c, drink a lot of water, and maybe give Marina a call. To combat the restless results of being sick for two days, I need to change my situation - even if it's just moving from couch to bed. Cleaning something would help, too!

ooooooofta. Getting that awful shaking-sore-throat-red-eyed feeling of sickness coming 'round the corner. Drinking TONS of water, took vitamins, but - blech. Half the office went home early today with headaches. There are only 3 of us left here. Thinking that maybe I can call it an early day too.

I hate to break my exercise streak even though I feel so bad. Luckily today is my long bike ride day, so I can sit and pedal and read Emily of New Moon or listen to Harry Potter.

After work, then the gym, I am going home, making some sort of dinner (taco salad?) grabbing clothes, project, pillow, blanket, and heading to Frank's to stay with one of our clients for the night. My shift is from 10pm-8am. Tomorrow morning on my way home I will stop at the gym and do 16 minutes of running and 10 on the elliptical. Again, if I need to take it easy and walk for three minutes between every two minutes of running, I will.

Then there's the YA holiday party, and the Walton's holiday party - both of which I would love to go to, and both of which I am hoping I don't feel too awful for. I also haven't spent ANY time with my fiance this week, and as he has to work on Sunday.......it will greatly depend on him.

Today I went on a little rant at a coworker about how much I love my home. It's nice to feel peaceful. I haven't experienced much of that in my life. Peace. Calm. Contentedness.

the fascinating saga of a sick-at-home person..

Have been going around this morning trying to clean up the little piles that collect when you are sick - the stacks of books and glasses by the bed, the little bits of trash from the immune-c packets, the knitting needles and skeins of yarn left by the couch where I abandon them after 2 minutes of interest... and in cleaning up this clutter I am realizing how dusty my house is. Doing every bit of laundry, including sheets, blankets and dishcloths, organizing dresser and computer desk, eating honey-nut cheerios with a chopped up fuji apple on top of it and way too much splenda, Bonnie Raitt playing on pandora. Above our windows we have the hardware already installed for curtains - maybe that would be a good project for today.

Adam works late tonight. We fell asleep reading Twilight aloud to each other last night. It's like reading the Boxcar Children all over again - very compelled by the story/characters, but DAMMIT I wish a better writer had thought of it. Maybe JK Rowling can do a re-write.

We had another installation in our series of Talking-About-Raising-Kids last night, only this one was a little grittier. This morning he said he'd had anxiety dreams about showing up at the Dodd house nekked. Let's interpret that one, shall we? I wonder why he is stressing this so much right now - I would like to have kids in the next 5 years, but it's another 5 years even after that before he needs to worry about school options, and by that time he'll KNOW his kid and it won't be an issue. I wonder why it's all coming up this week.

I had a moment of weakness that wasn't a big deal last night but I wasn't proud of, either. I am trying very hard to not do what we have coined "throwing attitude around" - in that it's a)an ugly face/expression, b)very self-defeating, c)makes me feel small-souled, d)adam hates it. It comes out in many situations, and after every single one if I stop and think, I can see how it would have been SO MUCH BETTER if I had just paused and-changed one little reaction. I've been doing better and better, and last night I woke up at a weird time and Adam was watching something on TV I didn't want to watch and I was just plain CRANKY and I picked on him for that reason - and I hate that as I am doing something, the smarter, calmer, not-cranky part of me is thinking "Roya, whatcha doing? You know that that is not the way to get what you want" but I ignore that part of me. Like I said - not the end of the world, just frustrating for me on my path to perfection (harharhar) when I CHOOSE the meaner option.

Anyways - I have one more load of dishes, a couple loads of laundry, and some dusting to do. Then fabric hunt, curtains, photos at karate, and making lunches for tomorrow. All to the tune of old recorded Gilmore Girls, I'm sure.

I heard a choir singing....

It rained last night. I walked out into the world this morning, stepped in a puddle, and looked up in surprise. Everything was sparkly. Listened to Tori Amos and Etta James and am fighting a weird surface melancholy, coupled with some deep gladness in the changing season. It is just - I do not spend the majority of my days doing what makes me really, really, really happy. I am tired of a lack of time. I was spoiled by unschooling, I guess - used to hours and hours and hours to delve into projects. I hadn't had a chance to knit yesterday so I stayed up 30 minutes later than I meant to, just so I could do a few rows. I don't like squeezing in things that make me happy like that.

I have a messy house again. Sunday a bunch of people came over to watch football, and it is now trashed. I had homework last night, class tonight, a meeting tomorrow night, class the night after that, and plans with my aunt the day after that. I am frustrated all over the place by a lack of order, cleanliness, and, once again, TIME.

There is definitely the possibility that I am getting sick right now, which I am sure accounts for a lot of the dragging feeling. Right now I would like to wear my orange pj pants, my dad's old heidelberg sweatshirt, and curl up on the couch with my knitting, some tazo tea, and adam's old grungy gray bedspread.

if I continue to feel this sick, I will ask paul if I can leave class early. I think that's a good idea.

I am about 1/4 of the way done with the right front on my slouchy cardigan - I finished the back. It's FUN FUN FUN to knit, but I am going to need more of this yarn.

I made a sale on etsy yesterday! Goodbye big chunky green beanie! You were fun!

......more later.

big deep breath

The last few days have been absolutely exhausting in an emotional sort of way, which feels like it's crossing over into physical. I got home from work today and just couldn't keep my head up, so I went to bed. I slept for a few hours, so now it's 9:30pm, and I'm strangely groggy. I am thinking I will find an old comforting movie and go to bed again soon. I was supposed to do a 2 mile run, but if I go to bed before 10, I could get up before 7am and do the run in the morning.

I've spent a lot of my evening tonight looking at the Good Vibrations conference website - where I will be speaking at in September. I'm suddenly aching for a good unschooling conference. My mom and sister went to the HSC Conference this last weekend, and it was so odd to hear them talk about it... my first boyfriend was Josh Engle, and his youngest brother (there are 4 of them) is just about my youngest sister's age - and he and his parents still go to the conference also. My mom/sister stopped at their house on the way home, just like we used to when I was going to the hsc conference, and it's just so funny to see that little echo in their experience. I could get ridiculously nostalgic for HSC conferences, but I just don't have the energy for that right now.

However, I do have the energy to say that I am who I am because of conferences like HSC, Live and Learn, Good Vibrations, etc. I am who I am because of groups of unschoolers getting together and taking over hotels so that even those drab pigeon wall colors and carpets end up looking like peacocks and birds of paradise flowers. I am who I am because I had pink hair for most of my teens, and so did most of my friends. Because we had people piles, hugged and cuddled a /lot/. Because we had talent shows, because we wrote poetry on our pants, because we spent so much time online waiting for that one weekend.

I miss being so tapped in to the unschooling world. I saw a new HSC magazine at my mom's house and missed knowing every person who was writing for it. I'm giving a talk about being a grown unschooler and I am suddenly feeling like I should be reversing the talk - asking the audience how I can stay as connected as possible when I am working full time every single day and I don't have kids of my own.

When I exhausted the Good Vibrations webpage, I moved on to Sandra's. I hit "randomize me" and found my mom's page of writing. Then I spent a fair amount of time reading my mommy's articles about unschooling and parenting. It's so funny - some of the articles she wrote many years ago, but they still apply. She's a smart cookie, my mama. She wrote articles on soothing frustrated children, and as recently as yesterday I had wandered into her house looking for soothing, and yup, she followed her own advice.

"my heart is a teacup with hairline cracks" says Witch Baby, and I feel not exactly that way, but more like I am very small, sitting on the edge of one. Either way I lean, I fall. I'm not good at this balancing act. I don't know which direction I want to go. So I am just going to sit here, for the time being. Hoping that it's just those two choices and that the third isn't that the cup is going to crumble under me.

I don't think I am as maudlin as that sound. I think that's part of growing up. I was very upset yesterday and made a list "what would a grown up do?" Yes, part of it involved crying to my mother, but other parts involved making appointments, trying to go to sleep early, and going to work and doing my job.

::::::
I have one zucchini that grows larger every day. I have 1 small pickling cucumber and one loooonng japanese cuke. I have a few small jalapenos, and probably upwards of 70 green tomatoes. The eggplant has blossoms, so do the honeydew. The basil has gone to seed. I am saving up money to buy wood for a new, and deeper, box. I'd like to have potatoes, garlic, onions. Maybe a whole box just for melons and squash.

The remainder of tonight and tomorrow will need to be rejuvenate-Roya day. I am in need of some gentle loving-thyself. Exercising in the morning will be a good start.

recap of my week

We still haven't heard confirmation from the landlords about when we can actually get the key. I'm really frustrated. We can't exactly start packing til we know when we can move, since we'll just be sitting amidst boxes and boxes. I packed up *some* stuff anyway...took photos off the wall, magnets off the fridge, and packed up my toiletries. I'm proud: I am getting rid of a ton of stuff, too.

Tomorrow is Adam's graduation - which means today they are doing the Pride Run - they wear their class shirts and go for a minimum of 8.5 miles. Yeesh. Then they have a class bbq, and then have "graduation practice" whatever that means. I can't believe the academy is almost done. It seems too good to be true. I hope I'm not laboring under the misconception that I'll get my boyfriend back...he seems to think that the next 6 months of probation at work will be harder. But holy cow, I don't see how that can be. At least it won't be the same kind of hard for me - the academy was all consuming and there were 60 other people to be consumed with. At work, he'll be the new guy, but it'll still be a regular *JOB* - not a lifestyle that I am locked out of.

So tomorrow I'm either driving up with Chris or my mom to Pasadena to be the proudest girlfriend ever. I got him a gift - a pair of Smith and Wesson cuffs, with his name and the date engraved. I hope he likes them. He was talking about how much he needed a second pair of cuffs, and I figured it'd be a nice way to commerorate the occasion too. Useful AND sentimental! Score!

In other non-cop related news I've been trying to go to a bunch of group classes at the gym this week - my goal was 4 different classes: step, spin, aqua and turbo kickboxing. However, I only made it to two different ones: turbokickboxing and step. I did attempt to go to spin, but they were full! Aqua I didn't go to because my elbow was hurt and I didn't want to push it. However, I liked both TKB and Step a lot and I'm going back to the Step class today.

I'm done with 1 of Rosie's striped kneesocks, and have about 4 stripes done on the 2nd one, and then lost steam. I've got to get that back out again at some point. They're not really difficult, and they're actually really fun to knit. I just put it in my art supply room, and then the entrance to that room keeps getting stacked high with boxes and junk and it's actually physically hard to get in there! heehee. So I should make a foraging expedition and get them out.

I've been feeling like I'm getting sick for the past week, and I was so glad to be in bed by 9:30pm last night. I don't feel better today, but I don't feel worse either, which is good.

That's all from me, for now. I wish we had the go ahead on the house!

sinus owch

I have a head-stuffed-up-like-crazy cold and all I want to do is go home and put on some silly little kid movies and curl up under the covers with tangerines. I've been crocheting dishcloths in order to sell them with the handmade soap Amber and I will one day make, and they are pretty and instant-gratification and the yarn is satisfying (yay cotton) and maybe if I feel up to it I'll do more of those. I'm at work right now, but everything is being difficult and I just need to go home and be sick, I think. I have an A2A event all weekend, and I can't even imagine how that will work if I am still feeling like this.

So. I will stop at the store and buy tangerines and then I will go home, and maybe even have a little bit of extra energy to put the clothes in the dryer and to start a loaf of bread, and then.... Lilo and Stitch, here I come.

I started an actual paper journal again. I got out my water colors yesterday - I did feel like I was 14 again, but mostly in a good way. I hope it helps. I want to make sure that as an adult I am journaling with a purpose - it's good for venting, but I also want to use it as my on-paper dialogue with myself, not just "grr I'm angry and frustrated and so and so pisses me off" but, "this is why I am angry and frustrated and maybe this is how I can change my perspective so I am not as much" that's what I need. I keep making stupid little mistakes lately that ruin the atmosphere of the evening, and if I'd just stopped for a breath, it wouldn't have happened.

Tangerines! It's time.

blech

throat hurts. skin aches. nose running. coughing. etc. sucks, man.

probably not going to karate tonight. will instead watch ratatouille while drinking chamomile tea and feeling sorry for myself. boyfriend wonderful. fish fun. cross stitch progressing. work day long.

Hi world!





I am finnnally starting to get over being sick, so I celebrated with an impulsive trip to Michael's. Mwhaha. I bought kind of a lot of yarn. I have plans for all of it though - I am going to work more on the granny square bags! I also bought handles. I am loving even the idea of them!
That's all for now. Don't forget to look at my treasury, it expires soon!

Ooh, I also posted a new category and new item - A BRAIDED RUG, ladies and gentlemen. That's right, you heard it correctly, a BRAIDED RUG. Guess what? It's made entirely out of recycled tshirts. How awesome is that? I'll answer for you - really, really awesome.

Have I mentioned that I am home sick for a whole week? I have a sinus infection that knocked me on my butt! I am tired of tv, and can't focus enough to read or crochet, so I am doing all sorts of etsy and blogspot stuff. Of course, it took me about 20 minutes just to write those couple of sentences.

Anyways, here is a photo of my mommy and me when I was muuuch younger - although already preparing for etsy, as you can see.

I am sniffling, coughing, hacking and dizzy - but luckily my amazing mommy not only lets herself get painted on by little-me, but also brought me soup and pudding yesterday. I also have the most wonderful boyfriend, who brought me two types of juice, two types of popsicles, and cleaned the whole kitchen. Oh, and he brought me the most important sicky food - french fries and ranch dressing.... gulp.

My doctor gave me about 6 prescriptions, and two of them are muscle relaxants - hence the inability to hold a crochet hook. Although they are starting to wear off, so I think I am going to attempt it soon.

My newest project are these granny square bags with bamboo handles that I think are DARLING (yes, darling!) and although I only have one completed - my mom made me promise that it can be hers, so I need to hurry up and make more for etsy.