thankful!

It’s Turkey Day, y’all. Hope everyone had a happy one!

As for me and mine, we had a lovely one. As per usual, Man got the turkey in the oven verrah early (he’s totally in charge of it; I don’t wanna) and thus it was ready by noon. I made all the side fixings, and we had a pretty good feast. The kids were totally excited by all the food. And as we sat around feasting, I felt really good that we were able to provide this for them. I know that there are a lot of people out there who can’t.

We spent the day eating and goofing around and reading. I had a couple glasses of wine and had a nice buzz happening. Then I got really, really tired and took a really, really good nap.

My good friend Friend came down and had dinner with us; she brought a delicious pumpkin pie (MADE WITH REAL PUMPKIN!!) just for me. I should share it buuuuut…. no. All for me!

I’m kinda kidding, and kinda serious about that. Not sure which way I’m going to swing yet.

I called my father earlier and it was nice talking to him; he’s still plugging away out there in PA. My brother and sister are doing good, but his dad isn’t doing so well; Grumpy is 85, and yeah… not so hot. Dad says his health has really declined. But he’s not in any pain… so that’s good.

So that’s a rundown of our Thanksgiving. It was good; can’t complain!

i should be disappointed, but i’m not

I lost my voice yesterday. My kids have all had the flu, and I caught it, but only for one day. What stayed around was this lingering, nagging cold. Not the worst cold I’ve ever had but still, annoying. Well, yesterday I woke up and realized that my voice was taking a hiatus and in its place was this squeaky sounding thing that did not lend itself to getting the respect that I should get from my various offspring. Meaning that they found it HI-larious that their mom sounded like Mickey Mouse on speed.

They kept asking me to do things, like swear. And then laugh. I really should beat them more…

Today, though, my voice is back! And so is the respect!

I’ve been working on a new afghan lately and thought that last weekend I would have finished it. It’s one of those that you crochet several pieces and then assemble them and sew them together. Well, upon assemblage, I realized that original creator of said afghan must have been a garden gnome because the afghan was that small. Could comfortably cover up my dog (who is about the size of a garden gnome), but not a whole grown up type person like… say… me.

So after some brainstorming, included ideas like making the border, like, really really big or just carrying forth and just giving it to the dog after all, I finally decided to just go ahead and double the number of afghan pieces and make the afghan twice as big. And THEN it should be big enough for one person, especially since the border will add to the size. This, however, creates more work for me and sets the time frame for completion back another three weeks.

I really should be kinda bummed about this because I have a few other afghan projects lined up after I finish this one that I really want to do, but… I’m not disappointed. I like crocheting. More than that, I like solving problems that I can solve. I guess the problem solving thing  has more to do with the fact that I’m kind-of a control freak and less to do with the enjoyment of crocheting, so maybe being happy about solving this kind of problem shouldn’t give me the kind of glee that it does since it’s feeding an issue that I really should be working on instead of enabling. However, that does not negate the fact that I am kinda excited about doubling the size of my afghan because the original pattern was too small. Either that says more about my life (or lack thereof) than is healthy or I really should get some therapy.

Or maybe I should stop overanalyzing the hell out of everything, including (especially) my own motives. But I think that is also part of the whole control freak thing, though, so I don’t know that I actually can without some sort of pharmaceutical intervention, and dood, all I want to do is finish the afghan!

And that is where that leaves me, today.

following the path of least resistance

I can’t believe I spelled that right on the first try. I bet you didn’t know it, but I am a wretched speller. The reason you didn’t know that about me is because I’m, like, Queen of Spell Check Using. Only don’t call me that because it makes me sound less serious than I really am, and I am pretty fucking serious most of the time.

Seriously.

So today I was thinking that I should get dressed and act like a productive member of society only here’s the thing; I don’t wanna. And then I was all “oh my gods, Jenna, you’re such a looooser, what do you do all day?” to which I replied “I am NOT a loser! And I do stuff all day, just… you don’t know everything I do!” and then I realized that once again I am having an argument with myself and… losing.

Here’s the thing; I am lazy. Like, extremely. I don’t live in a mess of a wreck or anything- stuff gets cleaned and picked up. But it’s more of a haphazardly type thing, like I see it and clean it up. And if it takes me a few days to picking up that rolled up sock on the floor that missed the hamper, or the pieces of paper that didn’t quite make the trash can, or whatever thing it is, then it takes me a few days. And then sometimes I’m on it like white on rice, and I go all insane and clean like a maniac and life and my house smells like Lemon Mr. Clean.

The problem with going all insane and cleaning is that invariably it gets dirty again. And I seriously hate that. I have it in my head that once I expend all this energy in cleaning something, it should fucking STAY clean! Like, forever! But it only works like that in soap operas. Have you ever noticed that in soaps, the houses are ALWAYS clean, and no one is ever actually cleaning? No? Just me…? huh…

Anyway.

Where was I? Oh yeah… cleaning…

Um.

I think I’ll go do something else.

wide open spaces

I’m totally a stay at home mom. Now complete with little purse sized dog and a mini-van. Kids go to school, Man goes to work and I hang out here and think of new and exciting things to do. Sometimes I even bake cookies and homemade bread. Right now I’m sipping a cup of java in my favorite elephant mug.

A complete and total stereotype, I am.

I’m not complaining! I’m not, like, bored or unhappy or anything (that’s what the anti-depressants are for!); I dig my life and all that. How could I not? It’s just that sometimes I look at myself and I feel like… what should I do NOW?

Here’s the truth; I procrastinate. I look at things and think, could I do that tomorrow? Next week? And if the answer is yes, then that is when I do it. The only things I don’t procrastinate on are things that I can’t; take, for example, appointments. I am ever prompt. If I say I’m going to be somewhere, then that’s where I am. I get the kidlets to school on time and I make sure dinner is ready at roughly the same time every evening. So I can DO it… whatever IT is, but I choose NOT to. Make sense?

A couple of months ago I decided to rearrange the furniture in my living room. This was prompted because I had a few boxful of books that were languishing in my closet because I didn’t have anyplace to put them; my bookcases were too full. So I bought a new bookcase. Instead of tearing it out of its box and assembling it right then and there, I let it sit. Because I didn’t like where I had planned to place it once assembled; I wanted to rearrange the furniture.

Instead of getting right on that, like normal people, I let it sit. I waited until the time felt “right”. I had never been that thrilled with the placement of my living room furniture in the first place, so me getting the motivation to move it all around in a more pleasing manner was not really that difficult to want to do. Making myself do it…? Took a little longer.

Eventually I got around to it. And like everything in my life, it was a case of one morning, I woke up, and just… got busy. The easiest part was moving the TV and the computer around. The hardest and most demanding part was pulling off all of my books from the shelves and moving the bookcases around. I have. A lot. Of. Fucking. BOOKS.

The whole process was totally slowed down because I kept stopping to leaf through this book and that book, reading favorite passages, looking for little factoids that had eluded my memory about specific plot points, making mental notes that I want to read this one and that one and this one over here again… yeah. Thank the gods for my youngest daughter, who loves a project and really through herself into this one; she really helped me get them all organized and back on the shelves. And once we did that, we were able to put together the new bookcase and YAY! Now all of my books are up off the floor and my living room is rearranged more to my liking. Now it’s a wide open space and that is what I always wanted.

So…

Yeah.

What do I do NOW?