It is time to come back to the blog.
I love to write. I always have. I was published years ago, and even given some awards for what I wrote. Very exciting, but as the years went on I realized that my time for it was nill, and when I was inspired, it was usually at a time where I could write nothing down. This blog is my writing outlet now. Time to dust off the old thesaurus and get things on track. it will probably also be the only journal I put more than two entries into before it finds the bottom of a pile of books.
So much has happened in the time I was gone that a detailed accounting of all the time would be a novel. I'll summarize.
-The chickens have all shuffled off this mortal coil. The first death occurred when Barbecue became egg bound and the egg broke inside of her. Peritonitis quickly ensued and hubby put her down. This was Halloween night. The neighborhood opossum decided the rest were a fantastic midnight snack, and despite the chickens having a secure area at night to roost, chickens are stupid, stupid creatures. I am still pained thinking about this. I adored my chickens. The dogs found the first chicken dead and cried and nosed her trying to get her to get up and play. Hubby assures me that when we finally find a place to settle that we will have more chickens.
-I went on a cruise with my dear friend Beth who is sadly blogless and a non-knitter. I've offered to teach her many times, she politely declines. Instead she commissions small projects for her family and pays handsomely for them. Back to the cruise. We went on a 7 day Western Caribbean cruise on Carnival cruise lines. I've never been to the Caribbean, and although we really didn't see much other than the typical tourist traps, I am dying to go again. You don't know luxury until you've had 7 days of people making your bed, food and drink available 24/7, and generally, nothing to do but what you feel like doing.
Returning to real life after that is a horrible let down. When you get home at night you really expect to walk into your room and find a towel animal and a mint on your turned down bed. I tried to pay the children to do this for me. They were so bitter about not getting to go with me, that they declined my offer of cash, despite the huge amount of crap I brought back for them. Hubby just about fell over laughing when I suggested at 1 am that we call room service for champagne and cheesecake, then go dancing.
-The girl turned 12 (gods help us) and the boy turned 10. Nothing makes you feel older than your children having birthdays. Nothing.
On the upside, in eight years I can legally set them loose on the world and try picking up the (few) remaining pieces of my sanity.
-We had a FULL house for the holidays. We brought home 4 of the kids from Hubby's group home to spend the holidays with us, and my uncle came up to spend the holiday as well. I could often be found escaping to my mothers house, pouring a drink and mumbling under my breath about 6 children in the house. Christmas Eve hubby took them all caroling. None of them had ever done it, and none of the neighbors have ever had carolers. They were stopped at each house for photos. They came home and we each talked about Christmas traditions and made a CD of the kids singing carols and creating a Mad Lib Night Before Christmas. We took all of the kids to Midnight Mass while my mom and uncle hung back and did the Santa thing. We returned home at 2:30 am to 6 children with eyes bulging out of their heads with excitement and were up until at least 5 am unwrapping gifts. (I must add in here that I received many lovely knitterly gifts and am very proud of my family that they finally figured out that if they need to give me a gift it should involve either yarn or liquor.)
Seriously, the best part of the holidays was knowing that each of these kids had a safe, happy and healthy holiday. Each of them at some point thanked us for having them, and told us how much it meant to them to have such a holiday and feel like a family. Hearing this made any gifts given or received become completely secondary, and I finally really appreciated what the holiday was about first time in years.
-In knitting news I have whipped the arse of 2 techniques. Fair Isle and Lace. I've made multiple fair-isle hats, and I even managed a Kiri Shawl for my mother for her birthday. Now if I can just whip the arse of knitting my father his long overdue aran sweater, I'll be golden.
-All of my time since then has been spent trying desperately to keep the house in order, work full time, keep the bills paid, spend as much time as possible with hubby during his 100 hour work weeks and when there is time, knitting. We have some big decisions coming up. My parents are selling both of their houses (this includes the one we live in now) and moving to Tennessee come summer. It is time for us to move on, and we are not sure yet where or when we will be going. Just that we are going. This also means thinning our household out of all the crap we have acquired in the last 3 years. How we managed to get all this crap is completely beyond me, but we've done it and now it's time to get rid of it, and get down to the bare essentials of what we really need and is really important to us.
Now, to convince hubby that every bit of fiber and yarn in our home is really, truly vital.
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