Misery-fest revisited

I'll tell you what rescued yesterday's misery-fest. I was presented with evidence that I am not stupid.

The Palm incident was the straw that broke the camel's back - I just thought all hope was lost for me if I couldn't install software off a CD and plug in a cable. After DeuceDad came home, I closed myself off in the office and resolved not to leave until I could HotSync the phone. I did leave the office without accomplishing that goal, but by no fault of my own. Turns out, our new PC is running the 64-bit version of Vista, which requires the phone to sync using Bluetooth. I don't have a USB Bluetooth adapter! So there's no way it could work! Even if I was a genius! PHEW!

What an enormous relief that I'm not incapable of performing simple tasks. (No, I'm not trying to insult people who don't know how computers work. I'm a software engineer. Installing software should be a simple task for me. It's like a nurse putting on a bandaid, or at least it should be.)

I'm still raw from yesterday, though. I have this interview (In 7 minutes!!). I kept the appointment a) in case I am wrong about the location, and b) for interviewing practice. Neither of those would be a bad thing. But just rereading the abject misery from yesterday makes me think I need some perspective. I'm not sure what that means right now, but going off the deep end over computer software is a bad sign.

Alright, 1:50. Deep breath...

Why oh why is my therapist copay $40?

I'm back in complete and utter, although hopefully very short-lived, depression. I got a call for a phone interview! The catch - I'm 90% sure it would be a 90 minute commute. I have a baby at home. I can't be away from him 11+ hours 5 days a week.

Then I tried to install my Palm software (which I've been putting off b/c I knew it would be a nightmare) and something is fucked up, I think with the phone. The phone I had no business getting b/c I'm not working.

So I cried. Argh.

This is the time when it would be so great to have that rockin' out playlist and just go out and run until I'm spent. Or, let's face it, alternate jogging and walking which would just piss me off.

This would also be a good time to get a little wine drunk with girlfriends. Oh, I only have one friend here. I left my group of friends to come to the land of milk and honey and the great job opportunity. Great trade.

This would be a good time to just be in the house alone. Except it's messy and everything's half finished and we can't afford to finish anything BECAUSE I'M NOT WORKING.

This would be a good time to go out and treat myself to a new purse WHICH I CAN'T AFFORD.

This would be a good time to sob hysterically and fall asleep. But I just heard the crib rattle.

Time to put on the happy face. Maybe if I can convince him I can save this day.

C is for Corner

C is for my corner. My crochet corner. I have a lamp so I can see my stitches, a table for piles of books and other goodies...


Bags and bags and bags of UFOs and yarn...



All reachable from the chaise!

It's a happy place to be!

Scrapbooking for the dedication impaired

I am closing in on the end of Deuce's first year scrapbook. He is 20 months old. By all accounts, this is not that bad. Scrapbookers either keep on top of their photos or fall hopelessly behind. I mean, I'm hopelessly behind, but the end of a huge milestone is in sight.

Remaining I have:

1. Thompson Park Zoo
2. Finding Feet
3. Photo shoot
4. Maxwell (ILs dog)
5. Easter
6. Packing to move
7. Hop & Pop (a fave toy)
8. Finish Christmas
9. Watching baseball with Grandpa Jeff
10. Playing with Grandpa Bob
11. Learning to stand
12. Playing music
13. Bubbles
14. Learning to walk
15. Claude Haiku
16. Me & Cousin Joey

I would like to do 4 of these topics per day and be done by the end of the week. That will never happen. I'm holding myself to an impossibly high standard of page quality and have been investing an hour per page minimum. I seems like if I don't struggle with design or journalling it's narrowing down photos or choosing paper. And I can NEVER find the right embellishments.

I just feel like if I can get over this hump I can get into the second year and be foot loose and fancy free. Until May, when I'll burn through countless trimmer blades trying and failing to finish the book before his birthday.

Hello Goodbye

Hello to my new hobby - knitting! That is a partially finished 8" charity lapghan square in Red Heart Super Saver on a 9" #8 straight bamboo needle. I have lots (LOTS!) of Red Heart that I just cannot throw away. I know this makes real yarn lovers question my sanity, but I can't throw things away. It's a sickness. Someone from my church who runs the knitting group has offered to help me learn, and I offered to make lots of squares for her afghans in return. I think I'm getting better at garter stitch. There are some holes and uneven-ness, but it's getting there.

I also make a ribbed hat for Deuce, but it came out tiny and I can't get him to leave it on long enough to take a picture.

I haven't given up on crochet. I just need a change of scenery after months of single-crochet on the SU blanket. I made myself a Diamond Ridges hat for a challenge. The pattern is modeled after Koolhaas, and it's very cool. (Sorry for the funky pic, too impatient to wait for a photographer)

And goodbye is to our houseguest Abbey. What a sweet little girl...

House guest

This is Abbey!

She's my aunt's 7 year old Pomeranian. She's really sweet, and actually getting along famously with Claude. They both slept in bed with us last night and there were no claws or teeth!

Deuce is loving having a dog around and quickly learned how to throw her ball for her (she LOVES fetch). It's only been one day, but she's reinforcing my desire to get a dog.

I'm still kind of pulling for a smaller breed (Boston terrier? Beagle?) because even with the dog and cat in bed with us, I still had room to stretch my legs out. And NO ONE messes with my sleep unless I birthed them myself. And even then I don't take kindly to sleep-stealers.

Back to my point on the dog though - it's fun having a dog around, and I really can't wait to get one of our own!

B is for Blanket

The SU blanket is done!! I am very happy with how it came out. It's very heavy fabric (all sc) and manly (no picot edge or other typical crochet embellishments). And it's long enough to cover DeuceDad from tip to toe!!


Deuce can't resist an opportunity to ham for the camera:

Doesn't love the camera:

Snuggled:

I'm so happy with how the project turned out!

So Yummy

Nope, not a food post. I'm done with my scrap room reorganize and I can see all my tools and products. So Yummy.

Here's everything in mountainous piles:

And the after shot:

So happy!

Scrap room purgatory

Three days removed from scrapbook hell, and 11 hours of moving, sorting and dusting later, I find myself in scrapbook room purgatory. It's not heaven, it's not hell. It could go either way. There are still some key elements that haven't found a home in the room yet (namely my bins of actual "scraps" to scrapbook) and I haven't made a page yet, so I have no idea if I'm going to be able to pull out a piece of card stock without the whole mess falling on the cat.

But I don't get the sensation of rolling anything uphill all day long when I come in here, so it must be time well spent.

Oh, and my cameras have a real home! Right next to the books I need to read... I swear sometimes projects like this turn up more to-do list items than actually resolve any problems. For example, I overheated the shredder 3 times after cleaning out the filing cabinet. Poor innocent shredder.

I've also been listening to music - I try to make a point of doing this so that Deuce doesn't grow up in a world of only "Rubber Ducky, You're the One." I borrowed Snow Patrol and Jack Johnson (Sleep Through the Static - who knew he had released another album?), and when those wore out I switched over to last.fm. I was a huge fan of the now-defunct Pandora, and last is even better because you have unlimited skips!

So that was my day. More to do, but that's what gets us up in the morning, right?

In the midst of scrap room hell

I haven't scrapped in a week, and I just zoned out to the point that I couldn't hear Deuce pulling stuff out of the over-the-door shoe holder I use to store stamps/punches etc. I'm surfing for inspiration, adding blogs to my feed reader and thinking I should update the blog roll on this page.

What woke me from this reverie? A writing style I just had to share. Check out Kelli Crowe's blog. The way she uses line breaks is so great! It's like haiku-blogging. I think she might use line breaks in place of commas. Anyhow, she's not saying anything so different from what I or any other blogger says about their family/hobby/daily life. It just looks different.

Journalling has always been the most difficult part of scrapbooking for me. To that point, I've never been able to keep up a journal, even as an exercise to improve my scrapbooking. This blog is by far the most writing I've done for enjoyment. I like to use photos, layout and embellishments to tell the story as best as possible. Journal prompts and clever titles are my friends.

I think this differently-punctuated writing style might elevate my scrapbook journalling. Instead of trying to dream up flowery words and phrases, I can still tell my stories my way. And just put them on paper differently so that a word on a line jumps out at and tells it's own story.

What a find!

Dudes

Deuce and I have a play date with a woman from my high school and her 15 month old - we ran into each other at the children's museum and it was fun to catch up with her for 5 seconds before our kids ran in separate directions.

I'm so glad to be seeing an adult that's not related to me. DeuceDad and I have actually spent some time with friends lately, and that was much needed let me tell ya. It's creeping up on a year that we've lived here and we haven't expanded our social circle at all.

People need dudes!

I'm going to go make myself presentable. Wish me a well behaved child!

Strangers. Waitin'. Up and down the boulevard.

My BFF knows all of my vices, and Journey's greatest hits is certainly one. She lent me her CD (I only had the tape and that's long gone) for my listening pleasure. I took the opportunity to sing super loud when I was in the car by myself going to Jazz and back.

Hidin'. Somewhere in the NIGHT!

It ain't pretty.

My quest to learn knitting continues. I started in on Seaside Diagonale, which is labeled Knit - Intermediate. I can see that there are some areas that need improvement, namely the edges. They don't look neat and tidy like knit edges should. To that end, I checked SnB out of the library since Happy Hooker really improved by crochet understanding. I really love Debbie Stoller and as soon as I'm gainfully employed again, I'm going to add SnB to the library.

My quest to crochet continues (as soon as I have jammies on) because I think I only have about 30 rows left on DeuceDad's SU blanket!! I have to seam the pieces together and choose an edge (maybe just sc since it's supposed to be manly), but I'm so happy to be almost done with hundreds of rows of sc!