Do unto others, and then cut out…

This went out, yesterday morning, “Several of us wanted to order lunch and have it delivered so we didn't have to venture out into the arctic weather. Attached is the link to the menu from [restaurant]. If you are interested, please let me know what you want to order and I need to have your money with tax no later than 10:00 am.”

I responded, “Just a thought, inspired (I hope) by the Golden Rule: it's not-OK for us to go out and get lunch today because it's so cold, but it's OK for somebody else to have to come out in the cold to bring us our lunch?”

Her reply? “Yes because it is their job, right?”

And I said, “Strictly speaking, yes, it is their job, and they are people who get cold just like we do. Maybe I'm overly sensitive to this because [the children’s father] delivered pizzas the summer before he went to chiropractic school. I used to read [a certain author’s] lifestyle books but got ticked at her when she said that when the weather was crummy, she ordered in pizza so she and her hubby wouldn’t get cold and wet, when one of the ‘things’ she was noted for was that we should be kind to, and considerate of, others. ... [Quirks: it's what makes me interesting, right?]”

It just smacks of elitism to me. We are cooler than they are, so they can run about in the awful weather, while we sit here in warmth and comfort, and tip them.

I might have been poor a little too long. I’m sure one could argue that if we do not call out for pizza, they don’t get the business, and they don’t get the tips they need. Maybe I should be the kind of rich person who has a porte-cochere and a coat rack just inside the door, and when the pizza dude shows up, I hand him a prodigious tip and a new coat for every member of his family.

I had a three-hour meeting this morning, up at the Bishop’s Storehouse in Carrollton. Welfare Services training for ward leadership: well-organized, insightful, and beautifully presented. Then we came back and I spent the afternoon running around like the proverbial headless chicken.

It is now 6:37pm by my computer. I wrote NintendoMan; “I need a two-minute cry, a one-hour shiatsu massage (or a three-hour Swedish massage), and a nap. [You don’t need to fix anything. I just need to vent, and by the time you get this and read this, I will probable be just fine again.]”

I am done taking care of others for a little while. I am going to log off and take care of Ms. Ravelled. See y’all in the morning.

Drowning in Dollies

Blessing is sitting patiently and elegantly on top of the dresser in her skirt and sweater. She has a book, so she’s not bored.

Celeste is reclining languidly on the couch, waiting for her sweater. The sleeves are done, and just about exactly what I had had in mind. The body, however, is a puzzlement. I cast on the right number of stitches; that’s not the problem. The problem, ladies and gentlemen, is pooling. I’m not crazy about it in my socks. I’m even less happy with it when it pops up in doll clothing. So at the moment I am doing some glorified swatching. I have the proper number of stitches on my needles and have worked half an inch or so of exceedingly boring [both visually and knittingly] stockinette above the garter stitch hem. Now I am going to try some slipstitch patterns to break up the colors and see if I like that any better. Another option would be to knit alternate rows from opposite ends of the ball of yarn, which could eliminate the pooling entirely or magnify it exceedingly.

And then there is the new doll, Faith (my SOOM Beyla), who arrived at Fourthborn’s office yesterday without fanfare, drama, or indeed any warning whatsoever. I stayed up till almost midnight, making and remaking a skirt for her, so she was not entirely naked when I went to bed, but the gathering at the waist is too bulky and needs tweaking. I just cannibalized my favorite yellow T-shirt, which is almost exactly the right shade of yellow to pick up the pale yellow thread in the plaid. I think the next project will either be one of those T-shirt dresses that were so popular when the girls were little (where you attach a deep ruffle to a T-shirt to turn it into a dress), or a knit shirt and a jumper.

Dinner tonight with Brother Sushi, and I’m looking forward to that. But now it’s time to bundle up and go scrape off the windshield. I am not walking from the station to the bus stop and then from the bus stop to the office this morning. It’s 16°F (-9°C) out there, and it does not say stupid on my forehead! (Boy, is it nice to have options.)

A Modicum of Weather

It is colder than a bill collector’s heart out there. 23°F (-5°C). Work is delayed until 11:00am. I am typing here by the fire, with two completed sleeves parked on a pair of DP’s. I squished them side-by-side then measured the circumference: 48 stitches total, and somewhere between 16.5 and 17cm; Celeste’s bust is 24cm.

I’ve cast on 72 stitches for a cardigan, allowing two stitches for a chain selvage and 2x2 ribbing that begins and ends K2. Now I need to brave my chilly studio and hunt up the 000 circ (done) so that I may work about two inches of ribbing through her midriff. I might do an inch or so of stockinette for a simple peplum first; I can always frog back and start over. I like peplums [pepla???], though I’ve only ever been brave enough to wear one blouse that had one. I think that was the summer before Middlest was conceived, when I was still relatively slim.

Dang. Time to yoke the oxen to the cart and head on into Dodge. My insulated mug is sitting on my desk at work. I do believe I will make a slight detour to Racetrac and acquire a second mug. They are perfect for reconstituting a package of ramen noodles, because of the slidey-opening that serves as a strainer/colander. We have a hot-water tap on the coffeemaker at work. I had a latte cup full of potato soup for breakfast.

I just checked the Weather Line for work. We are definitely open for business. [Mumble mumble growl snarl.] I would so much rather stay home and play on Facebook today.

“By the presence of a pool table in your community.”

With apologies to Professor Harold Hill, I wish I had room for a pool table chez Ravelled. There was one offered for sale in our employee-to-employee classifieds, and it had a red felt top. Sadly, there really, truly is no room at the inn. [I know at least two guys with pickup trucks who like me well enough to lug it here, (or half of it here, each) if there were.]

In other news, the second sleeve on the doll sweater is nearly complete. It would be done, and I would probably be halfway up the waist ribbing on the sweater body, if I had gotten myself out of the house soon enough to catch the train this morning. But I made a virtue of necessity and tossed a skirt and my dressiest pair of clogs into the back seat, and after work I drove up to the temple, one full day ahead of schedule.

☺

Work went fairly well today. I transcribed a tape for one of the other attorneys. [I am so spoiled since I started working for my attorney.] I may have to transcribe another one tomorrow. Builds character, right?

Dinner last night with NintendoMan. We must have sat there for two full hours, laughing and talking and occasionally holding hands. When I showed up [late] at Knit Night, they looked at me and grinned, and one of my friends remarked that I was glowing.

Have I mentioned that I like the man?

It’s nearly 10:00pm, and I think I can finish the sleeve before falling asleep here in my chair. I know that I’m being uncharacteristically silent, but he got most of my day’s allotment of words last night, and probably a fair number of today’s.

I may have solved part of the mystery with the recurring athletes foot. I have been battling it, off and on, for roughly a year and a half. I was fine today until I switched to my knee-high hose and the nicest pair of clogs. And now I have a lesion forming on one of my feet. I have been washing my hose in a lingerie bag in hot water at the laundromat, and drying them on at least the perma-press cycle, hoping that that would be enough to sterilize them. Apparently not. I threw this pair into the trash after coming home from the temple, and I think I will just invest in a whole new batch of hose. In the meantime, I have so much Nystatin on the itchy spot that my foot and toe look leprous!

If I were still a drinking woman, this would probably be a night for it.

I'm OK. And I had a wee adventure.

To repeat: I’m OK. And I had a wee adventure.

So, I got up, sluiced off, ate a little breakfast, went over to Racetrac to tank Lorelai and to get a mug of hot chocolate. While driving over there, and while tanking the car, I noticed that my left upper arm was tender. Not a sharp, stabbing pain, just something not-right. And I had had some recent heart-flutteriness at a time when I was not kissing a certain jolly old elf. And my fingers have been tingly a little more often than usual. [For years, they have wanted to go to sleep if I do a lot of needlework before I eat breakfast, especially if my hands are above heart-level; once I refuel, they’re fine.]

Since I was driving in to work, I decided to take a little detour by my PCP’s office and ask for a blood pressure check. When her nurse was weighing me [that number almost gave me heart failure, in and of itself], my doctor asked what was up, and when I told her the symptoms she said, “Let’s check you in and run a quick EKG, just to be on the safe side.” Which they did.

Blood pressure is normal [well, 128/80 is high for me, but I was feeling a little anxious]. EKG is stellar as always. No headaches, chest tightness, shortness of breath. Could be stress. Could be I’m holding my arm differently when I drive. Could be the last 5 pounds. Am going to make a couple of infinitesimal changes in my diet that, over time, should increase my already good general level of health.

Today I am taking my hour of comp time for the hour that I worked last Thursday after everybody else had gone home. I got my nails done last night. There will be knitting, but I may be AWOL for much of Knit Night. Between his schedule and mine, there are now only two nights a week when NintendoMan and I can see one another. I will not give up my chick time, because I need to spend time in the company of other knitters, particularly those as nice as my Knit Night friends. I will have my cake, and I will eat it, too, but it may lean more toward petits fours than cupcakes!

He has a job. He’s good at it. He loves what he does. We have both been praying for his bookings to pick up rapidly after the Christmas rush. [This is normally a relatively slow period for him.] I would have to be an ingrate and a nincompoop to complain because he’s working several nights a week. I like to think that I am neither.

I would show you the first sleeve for Celeste’s sweater, but at the moment it resembles nothing so much as an item suitable for warming the second brain of one of the Seven Dwarves. And this is, for the most part, a squeaky-clean blog. So, no visual until there is a second sleeve, and a sweater body connecting them. I have about 15% of the second sleeve done. And no idea whatsoever what the sweater body should look like.

A recent exchange:
HIM: I will have to call you later, Drama is brewing and I am in the middle of it.
ME: instant, or decaf?
HIM: Insanity
ME: oh, my favorite flavor

Well, maybe not my favorite flavor (that would be chocolate). Silly me, I thought that drama only brewed in families with herds and flocks of daughters. In our house, when the girls were teenagers and the moon was full, it was triple-strength espresso with dynamite sprinkled on top, instead of cinnamon.



One final random factoid. That little guy apparently shared the shower with me yesterday. [Click to embiggen; he had fangs as well as a stinger! We will call him Count Waspula.] I discovered him carefully traversing the steamy ceiling, almost visibly shaking the droplets off his tiny feet. It slowed him down enough that I was able to whack him with the flyswatter. Good thing I don’t wear my glasses in the shower; I’d have had a hissyfit of major proportions.



Mmm. Chocolate...

Subversive Virginity

A link to this article was in the footnotes to a recent General Conference address. I was rummaging around at lds.org for a spiritual thought for our welfare meeting.

@ Kristen: Kim’s email address is in the left-hand column of her homepage, right under her picture. At least that’s where it shows up when I click on the link. I am getting so used to the Facebook chat window jumping all over the screen when I talk with NintendoMan, that nothing much surprises me anymore.

Ten hours at church yesterday, more or less, give or take. By the time I got home from the fireside, I just wanted to kick off my shoes and put on my jammies and talk to TheBoy. Which, thankfully I did, a nice comfy conversation punctuated only by his coughing.

I was sensible at the potluck last night. A bowl of soup, a couple of my friend Ruth’s excellent cheese biscuits, an ordinary roll with the real butter which I provided, a small rice krispie treat, and a narrow[ish] slice of pecan pie. Of course, if you feed a herd of 40-somethings all the carbs they could wish, the inevitable result is drowsiness. And about halfway through the mission president’s address, I was glad to have my knitting, and to be sitting next to his wife. (See ten hours at church yesterday, above.)

So, back in the saddle again today. It is going to be weird to have a full week at work, after two short weeks in succession. Good thing I like my job!

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but I do set a goal or two. One of this year’s is to serve in the temple weekly. I need that mid-week spiritual booster shot; the spark which I have been seeking is very much present in this friendship between NintendoMan and me. We are each committed to Heaven’s standards for interpersonal behavior. Regular temple attendance, as limiting touch to that which is respectful and reverent, will ensure that we continue to honor ourselves, one another, and our respective covenants with the Lord.

There is fire which purifies, and fire which destroys. By carefully and prayerfully avoiding the latter, we open up the possibility of the former.

More on the topic of intimacy. With a side order of yarn.

I like Laura Brotherson’s columns on Meridian. I also liked this article by a different counselor. Much application to all sorts of relationships, marital or no. [I am just fiercely determined that if there is a next time, I do everything I can to get it right and keep it right.]

For my friend Kristen: DearDaisyCottage. One of the loveliest blogs I know.

Tola, was it you who recommended The Corpse Bride? I scored a copy at Half Price Books last night, for $6.48. Now to either finish connecting the new DVD/VHS player, or concede defeat and hook up the one I know how to program and run, or really concede defeat and ask one of my guys to do this for me.

Major stash enhancement yesterday. Secondborn and 2BDH threw yarn money at me for Christmas; who am I to argue? I was planning to spend most of it at The Shabby Sheep with the 10% discount I get on my first purchase in January, but Whirled Fibers has a two-day, 25% off sale that ends today, for those of you who keep a different Sabbath than I do.

So here are the three skeins of Spud & Chloe Fine Sock that I bought last weekend.



Two new skeins of Noro Kureyon Sock.



Two balls of Panda Silk, almost certainly destined for a doll sweater.



A hank of PacaPeds, an alpaca-blend yarn spun in Peru which combines every green I coveted three years ago. And finally, finally, a skein of Madeleine Tosh’s Tosh Sock which revisits my color obsessions of both 2007 and 2008.



This ought to keep me out of the pool halls for awhile. Just entering it all in my stash on Ravelry will take up the better part of half an hour!

Remember that vagrant ladybug in my kitchen? He/she/it was joined by accomplices yesterday, all three of them persistently trying to mate with the lights on the ceiling fan. I don’t know if their mission was successful, but two of the lights are out this morning.



Those two dots on the upper right light are the survivors. The little guy below died with his boots on.



I got to see NintendoMan at his best yesterday, entertaining a living room full of five-year-olds at BittyBit’s birthday party. He is just amazing, all personal prejudice aside. And afterward, I got to walk him to his car, and we talked for a little before he left for the next gig. There was, sadly, no smooching, because his dearly beloved grandchildren gave him a cold for Christmas. So we just held hands wistfully. [And then I went back into Secondborn’s house and carefully washed my hands. I may be a romantic, but I am an exceedingly practical one.]

Cheese, please!

I was very happy to read this yesterday. It made my grocery shopping ever so much easier! I ran amok at the grocery store. Well, amok for me, but probably not for all y’all. And as I begin this post [late on Friday night], there is a pan full of twice-baked potatoes in the oven for the second baking.

[It is now Saturday morning. Very early Saturday morning.] I am feeding the elders tonight. Whether they get half of those potatoes, or half a pan of lasagna, or something else entirely, remains to be seen.

I had a bad case of the fidgets yesterday. So I napped. A lot. And I baked. (Quite a bit.) I did not, however, eat my feelings, preferring to pour them into the keyboard. And I did not indulge in retail therapy, preferring to pick up my knitting and make some progress on the sweater which began as Jessica’s/Grace’s/Eve’s and will now be Celeste’s. The skirt fits her like a charm, and more to the point, it suits her.

I was afraid the colors would be too subdued for her personality, which appears to be at least as feisty as my own. I do need to tweak the underskirt a bit, however. It is just that much too long. But now I can use my sewing machine to shorten it at the top in a matter of minutes.

I caught up on all my Bloglines. NonSequitur is excessively funny these days. Joe (the dad) and Victoria (the sister of Brenda, who ran the bait shop and had a crush on him a year or so ago) appear to be smitten with one another. She is doing her darnedest to run the show. I have no delusions that I am running the show with NintendoMan. And we are both far more wary than Joe in the comic strip. I am not sure if this is a case of life imitating art, or the other way around, but I am enjoying it [both the comic strip, and my own adventures in Datingland].

I browsed the November issue of Gourmet (again). I ate half of the leftover glazed carrots. I cut a reasonable portion off the rotisserie chicken and tumped the rest of it into the crockpot, where it has simmered overnight. Soon I will go into the kitchen and decant it into the colander over my stockpot. And while the meat cools sufficiently for me to pick it off the bones, I will peel the rest of the potatoes, rinse and slice the leeks, and prepare a ginormous batch of leek and potato soup.

The chicken will become pot pie, chicken salad for sandwiches, and extra protein in my ramen. (I can usually get half a dozen meals, sometimes more, from a rotisserie chicken.)

While I was out, I found suitable birthday cards for the Bitties. Sadly, they do not make cards for people in my situation. Maybe I should come up with a new line: Middle-Aged Crazy. Or Flirting with the Oldies. Or something. It is truly (if wonderfully) weird to be thinking about holding hands, at our age.

I realized one day last week that I have no idea what normal male behavior is. My girlfriends assure me there is no such thing, while my guyfriends [if I were to ask them] would counter that they make perfect sense, while it is we who are difficult to understand. FirstHubby was probably fairly normal, but that was long ago in a galaxy far away, and I was more than half a bubble off level at the time. The children’s father, even when he was healthy, was not a normal male. I do not say that in a critical sense; he was a thoroughly delightful human being and a dear companion who fit into none of the convenient stereotypes of masculinity that prevailed when I was younger.

Most days I have no idea what to make of NintendoMan. He is refreshingly candid; I am coming to trust that he means what he says. [I might appreciate this less were it not for the last man I dated, who was careful not to lie to me and also careful not to give a hint of what he was thinking or feeling.] He makes me laugh; he makes me think, and boy howdy, does he make me blush!

Which is not to imply that he says or does anything untoward; it’s just that when his forthrightness collides with my painstakingly-découpaged layers of neo-Victorian respectability, hilarity is the natural but disconcerting result. It appears to be doing wonders for my complexion.

A Good Question! And Happy New Year, Everybody!

I just woke up. It is, by my computer’s clock, 1:41am on the first day of a new decade. And I am awake (barely) after 4.5 hours of sleep. My phone is charged, my typing fingers are ready to roll, and all the rest of you have just gone to bed after welcoming in the allegorical kid-in-diapers with champagne, smooching, or [in a show of reckless daring] full-fat milk.

There is a text on my cell phone from Firstborn: So why am I spending New Years with NintendoMan & you’re not here? I almost texted her back, until I realized that she was probably somewhere on the continuum between kissing her hubby goodnight and easing into that first round of REM time.

But it’s a good question. I woke at 3:00 yesterday morning. Unlike the rest of my office, I did not leave at 4:00, because the powers-that-be forgot to ask Corporate to shut down our phones an hour early. I might have ingested something that I am mildly allergic to while dining at the country club [more on that, later], because mid-afternoon my ankles broke out in hives while I was sitting at switchboard.

I walked out of the office at 5:05 and made my usual pre-drive trip down the hall for a pit stop. I pressed the elevator button to go down to the parking level, then realized that I did not remember having set the lock for the front door to our suite. After arming the alarm. So I walked over to the front door, wiggled it discreetly, and trudged back down the hall and into our suite, triggering the alarm. Walked 3/4 of the way around our suite to the front desk, locked the door, walked back, reset the alarm, checked out with building security and informed them that the alarm which had just gone off in our suite, was me.

Drove up the ramp from the parking garage to find the streets wet, the temperature dropping, and myself suddenly bone-weary. I did not want to go home, bake two sets of treats, drive through what I suspected could turn into freezing rain, and dodge drunks. So I called BestFriend and told her I was opting for home and an early bedtime. And then I called Brother Sushi and told him I was bypassing the dance as well, and to please give my excuses to anyone who cared.

I don’t know: staying up for 22 hours straight and driving for 125 miles, more or less, after work? It just didn’t seem like a Real Good Time to me. So I grabbed dinner from Panda Express, ate it, brushed my teeth, and was in bed a little after 8:30.

...OK, I’m officially happy now. Just spent half an hour or so chatting with NintendoMan through the wonders of modern technology. [And I’ve woven in the ends on BittyBit’s scarf.] He will be entertaining at her birthday party tomorrow. Which was way sooner than I had expected to see him, because both of us have stuff going on at church this weekend...

So I didn’t entirely miss him for New Year’s, and the year has begun as I hope for it to go on. Now I can contemplate the next knitting project, which I think will involve replicating this



[borrowed from Fourthborn] as a sweater-vest. The epaulets will be easy enough to replicate, and I think I can imply the piping along the seams by using a twisted knit stitch.



This would probably be as good a time as any to tell you about yesterday’s lunch. Our table was in a corner, looking out over the 18th hole. The ceiling was way up there. The room was still decorated for Christmas. There was a doorman. I could hear the Tab Choir warbling The Hallelujah Chorus overhead as we finished our lunch.

I could so be a rich girl. I had a ham-and-Brie sandwich, no doubt fried in butter made from the milk of cows stabled just off-site, cows with golden collars and platinum cowbells. A generous cup of berries smothered in whipped cream and generously sprinkled with cinnamon. A side Caesar salad with a tissue-paper-thin crouton of baguette kissed with Parmesan and then toasted gently.

Foodie heaven. Three of our party were golfers. There were stories. My other friend loves to be in the great outdoors. Me? I could have cheerfully turned my chair toward the window and spent the afternoon sitting and knitting, looking up occasionally to watch the squirrels chase each other up and down the trees, or sitting by the fireside near the foyer.

It’s now officially morning. [I went back to bed for a little nap.] Birds are singing outside the front window. The fireplace is humming merrily. So, my friends, am I.

And another year bites the dust!

A pretty good year, at that. A new grandchild, fresh opportunities at work, two sweaters off my needles, increasing order chez Ravelled, and major responsibilities at church. Not to mention the astonishing metamorphosis of an old friendship.

Even the odd smooch here or there; take that any way you like!

So, work today, and lunch with office friends and our attorneys at a country club in BigD [I know!] and early dismissal followed by cookie-baking and oh I do hope a nap, then a quick stop at BestFriend’s party, and on to the dance.

BittyBit’s scarf is roughly 38” long. She’s approximately 41” tall. I think it’s time for a garter-stitch finale and the weaving-in of ends. Now to find a card that says you’re precious and nearly perfect and five whole years old! [How did this happen?]



I zeroed out my inbox yesterday. With my attorney in the office, no less! I popped my head in just before leaving for the day and told him, “My box is empty. Thought I should come check for a pulse!” He is reviewing reams and reams of medical records. This is why we pay him the big bucks, and also why I do not want to be a paralegal when I grow up.

We have our new job assignments for the next little while. Attorney who was out on maternity leave, comes back next week. Secretary who has been on light duty after surgery, is cleared for heavier (if not full) duty. My friend who has enjoyed the freedom of the office for the past couple of months, will once more be shackled to the switchboard. And I am still cross-training as my attorney’s secretary.

We have a secretary retiring at the end of January. Naturally, I am hoping that they will keep me where I am, move my friend to my old word-processing duties, and hire somebody young, cute, and relatively inexpensive for the front desk.

But for today, I am hoping just to stay awake at my desk while completing a review of the presiding-official directory [judges, mediators, etc.] which the office manager requested, and which she needs by close of business. And maybe even the self-assessment which she wanted two weeks ago, and which it is in my best interest to give to her, but which I have been too busy opening cases and firing off letters, to sit down and do.

One of the things I fully intend to do tomorrow, assuming I can get out of bed after dancing tonight, is to get a jump start on my tax return. Last year’s was brutal, with the changeover from head of household to single individual. I think I am getting a small refund this year; I will either toss it into the emergency fund or apply it toward debt reduction. Maybe some of both.



What do you do with a listing Santa, earl-eye in the morning? He just kinda slid over sideways when I picked up Celeste to take her to work the other day.

Knitting, Party of One

We had a bit of weather yesterday. Rain into snow, sleet in some parts of the Metroplex. I drove to Borders anyway and sat down for a good deal of knitting and some discreet people-watching. There was a deaf man who was signing at his laptop. I was careful not to eavesdrop, but it was a lively and apparently happy discussion.

I was the only one from our group who showed up; I stayed for maybe 45 minutes and came on home, watered my virtual garden on Fairyland, knitted some more, and chatted with NintendoMan. Or tried to. The chat screen kept stalling, and finally it started appearing and disappearing and coming up in random spots on the screen. So we gave up on that and talked on the phone for awhile.

I know, shocking!

One of my friends is hosting a small NYE party tomorrow night. I plan to swing by on my way to the dance. And then I plan to dance holes in my stockings. After which I will come home and sleep for a year or two. NintendoMan is working that night, so there will be no kiss at midnight for Ms. Ravelled. Which is not all that different from oh, say, most of the last 12 years, thus eminently survivable.

Maybe I should leave the moostletoe holder up until V-Day, or my birthday?

Tonight after work I will go serve in the temple, road conditions permitting. Yeah, I am a little scattered this morning. That boy discombobulates me like you would not believe...

BittyBit is Five Today!

And the next time I blink, she will be 16 and dating boys. I have her scarf here in my lap and add a row every few web pages I read.

I went to bed early last night, in large part because I was “peopled out”. There was a flurry of text messages between a dear young friend and me; it is a good thing that I followed that impression to bump my account up to unlimited texts. I have gotten to where I would rather text than talk, in most cases. This is largely due to all the years I spent on switchboard. I would rather save the nice long chats for when I am face-to-face with my friends.

Yesterday was a perfect example: Sherry came downtown on a matter of business, and we went to lunch at Cindi’s, where we inhaled chicken fried steaks and mashed potatoes and gravy and only diverged on what the second vegetable should be. And we talked. And it was good. [No, it was great! I have never come away from time with her, feeling bored and twitchy and wishing I were elsewhere. It doesn’t matter if one of us is having a bad day, or both of us are having bad days, or everything is coming up roses all around.]

Last night I had envisioned a bit of sewing for Celeste, possibly involving the ritual sacrifice of a white sock to make a cami to go under her blouse. Instead, I spent the evening losing badly at Mahjongg Toy Chest because I kept forgetting to pause it when a text came in. Am I glad that I spent the time on my friend? Absolutely! She needed to visit, and I was happy to listen. But by the time we were done, I was no longer in the mood to stay up and wait for NintendoMan to come online so we could chat or maybe talk on the phone.

Memo to the angels-above-us-who-are-silent-notes-taking: Please be advised that I really, truly tried to choose-the-right last night. And it was probably a good thing for me to be in bed at 8:45, all used up in a good cause. But was it really necessary for me to dream about octopi coming to the rescue, and spy wars in drafty barns, or to wake at 2:00 this morning?

I have duly noted BittyBit’s birthday party for Saturday morning, merci beaucoups. January is filling up fast [oh the life of a social butterfly! -- I have at least one something every Saturday, sometimes two]. And I just finished the first half of the yarn on her scarf; it’s roughly two feet long at this point. Secondborn, would you mind measuring her height so I have some sense of how long to make it? Also from shoulder to floor. Thanks!

So glad that I caught the laundry up last Saturday. One less thing to worry about this week.

And now if you will all excuse me, I think I will go cannibalize a sock. And rustle up some breakfast. And maybe catch a nap before the alarm goes off in an hour. Or not.

Bugs We Like

As opposed to those we don’t. I give you Still(ish) Life with Ladybug and Bread Crumbs:



Found that little fellow on the cutting board when I went to wash up the dinner dishes. Just parked there, twiddling his feelers, and not the least inclined to fly away home. I nudged him gently a couple of times with my fingernail and got the insect equivalent of one raised eyebrow, “You talkin’ to me?”

Much progress yesterday on what I stubbornly persist in thinking of as BittyBit’s scarf. I would like to take it over there after work tonight, as her birthday is tomorrow, when I’d like to go to Knit Night instead of heading straight for Fort Worth at the end of the day. I’d like to take Celeste to work as well, preferably with an undershirt or cami under her blouse so she can perch on my desk without looking subliminally provocative.

Of course, if Secondborn tells me that BittyBit is having a party on Saturday, that would take a lot of pressure off; I might even have time to whip up a burgundy cashmere blend scarf in case the littlest diva informs me politely that purple is so old-school. She is polite, that one, but incredibly opinionated. I’m sure I don’t know where she gets that from! [Why did that apple fall off the tree and roll right over here to my feet?]

And I am itching to get my hands on the new sock yarn which I bought on Saturday. Those three skeins are hanging out on the back of my couch, just daring me to wind them up and get going.

I wonder what sort of adventures await at my desk today? Time to fluff my hair, put on my shoes, and go find out.

PS. Pottery Barn would like me to know that a lot of their stuff is on sale. Good thing there is no room at the inn. Also a good thing that the cherry-red Manhattan sofa I have been coveting (for what? five years now?) is not one of the items on sale. So easy to be virtuous when there’s no real temptation. Yeah, pretty, also not “me”. Next!

Shoes. Lunch. (Just remembered: Sherry is coming downtown today, woohoo!) Keys. Now.

Good to remember:

10 Things No One Tells You About Marriage. True, so true! I don’t know why the word which is used to sell everything from sports cars to toothpaste is in the coding for this link. A fairly good article, if not as good as the first one.

But enough of worldly advice. These are the two General Conference addresses which are the basis for the fourth-Sunday “Teachings for our Times” lessons in Relief Society and in the Priesthood quorums in our stake today.

I have been thinking a lot, lately, about what love is, and isn’t. How best to love and serve the various people in my life. How to love my kids in a way that feels loving to them. How to love my friends, regardless of my opinions on the choices some of them have made, or are making. How to support someone who is suffering, or give someone space to deal with their struggles, without abandoning them or giving them the feeling that I have. [How not to behave like the man I dated a few years ago, who fled when I needed his support most of all.] How to remember that I cannot be anybody’s savior, not even my own, but that it is OK, because we already have a Savior. How much I long for a rock-steady priesthood holder to preside in my home.

So these two addresses are powerfully comforting, even as they stir up tender feelings and no small amount of frustration with my current situation. They lift me out of my time-bound concerns and remind me of the eternal perspective. And I am blessed.

Also, there is knitting. Some progress on the smoky plum scarf. And three new skeins of sock yarn, courtesy of Brother Sushi, who gave me the wherewithal and a strict injunction to only spend it on yarn. Little did we know that The Shabby Sheep would advertise a four-hour Boxing Day sale, with 30% off on all yarns. My own out-of-pocket? One red cent! I have enough yardage to make a pair of stunningly pink socks, plus a sweater or shrug for Celeste. This is the same Spud & Chloe sock yarn that I gave my sister for Christmas, though hers was green. [20% silk, 80% superwash merino.] And I still have chocolate. Never has eating my feelings been quite so delicious.

Stay me with clementines, comfort me with superwash, for I am sick of love...

Kevin Bacon is 50???

Scroll all the way down to the end of this article. As he so famously said in Footloose, “Jump back!” I found this out how, you ask, since I rarely read a newspaper and do not subscribe to People Magazine? Well, after my post-turkey nap, I decided to wade through all the emails pertaining to knitting. Knitter’s Review led me to Jane Brocket’s book and blog, which led me to that first link.

Oye. Now I really gotta cut footloose! (I’ve subscribed to her blog, by the way. Lovely clear writing, and not only about knitting.)

What’s on my needles? I’m knitting away on a smoky purple scarf that may or may not end up being for BittyBit. Her mother informs me that the current favorite color is red [yes, I’ve blogged about that, I’m getting older, bear with me] and that she has been informed that when said Bitty turns 5, the new favorite color will be white. Good luck with that: I am not knitting anything white for a five-year-old. It took me forever to convince my mother not to give the girls white shirts for birthdays and Christmas, because we had a dirt driveway. The Bitties live in a considerably more urban neighborhood than their mother grew up in, and their parents are much better housekeepers than I ever care to be, so there’s not that issue, but still...

The Bittiest of them all is turning out to be a real charmer. He spent most of the time I was there, grinning and flirting like crazy in the arms of his aunts and cousins. I just wanted to knit, until it was time to eat. Lots to think about at the moment, vacations to plan for next year, what project I want to knit next for myself, the hoodie for Fourthborn’s Fiancé, doll stuff, Christmas stockings for Firstborn’s tribe. I can think a lot of this through while knitting away on the smoky purple scarf.

I think the glazed carrots turned out rather well. (Girls, feedback and/or suggestions are welcome.) I melted half a stick of butter in my cast-iron skillet, got about 2# of them all slippery and sassy, poured something like 3/4 of a carton of leftover chicken stock over them to simmer with about a tablespoon of fennel seeds and a tablespoon and a half of herbes de Provence, then tumped it all into my smaller crockpot to finish cooking through and transport to Secondborn’s. Oh, and a good glug, maybe a cup, of cooking grade maple syrup. They were tender, fragrant, and I don’t have all that many leftovers. I separated the carrots into one container and the jollop into another. I think I will melt down a can of cranberry jelly and mix it together and reduce it to make a glaze for a small sliced ham. This lovely cold weather puts me in the mood to cook.

I also have most of the makings for a pan of lasagna. [I have been encroaching upon the cream cheese and will need to acquire more.] That might happen this weekend, too. And I think there may well be more puttering. There are a couple of boxes in the hall that are just begging to be unpacked, and a small load to take to the thrift store, and if I get really ambitious I may start painting the hall. I would neither hold my breath, nor bet the rent, on the latter.

Mt. Washmore is piling up in my boudoir; seems like I only did that a week ago, though I know it’s been longer. But first, there is breakfast, and while the hash browns at Whataburger are murmuring my name, I think I might be sensible and fix a nice bowl of Cream of Wheat instead. Or I could take the cardboard boxes out to my recycling bin, do my grocery shopping now before Boxing Day madness begins, and hit the laundromat when it opens at 8:00. All of which would necessitate the #10 breakfast at the drive-through, because it would never do to fall asleep with my nose on the agitator, now would it?

Oh, Milo, c’mon c’mon let’s go... [Holy cow, Kenny Loggins is fixin’ to turn 62?!]

[P.S. It also wouldn’t do to log(gins) off without wishing LittleBit a happy 20th. I’m officially out of the teenager business!]

A.D. - Oh, look! Snow! - D.

So, I woke up about 4:40 on Wednesday and was doing fine until around 9:00. Then my body decided we did not want to transcribe dictation anymore. We wanted to take a nap with our nose in the keyboard. To prevent having QWERTY reverse-embossed across my face, I ambled downstairs to the deli and brought back a bottle of Cherry Coke. They were, sadly, all out of IV tubes.



This is what I saw when I stepped out of the elevator on the parking level at work, yesterday afternoon. Two cars: Lorelai (with all my stuff stacked up on her trunk) and the Lone Ranger’s current incarnation of Hi-Ho-Silver.

This is what I saw from the front door about 5:00 last night.



And this.



Snow was flying up, down, and six kinds of sideways. And it was colder than a bill collector’s heart out there. But heart-stoppingly beautiful.

Also beautiful? My friend Francis’s post. Me too, my friend, me too. I believe because of the clear testimony of Christ the Lord which is borne between the covers of The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Christ. How many books do you know, which come with their own promise [Moroni 4:10] that if you read with pure and sincere intent, and pray to know if the contents are true, you will receive your own witness?



It is officially Christmas morning, and I just put the last stitch into the BittyBoys’ stockings. I need to wrap LittleBit’s birthday present so I can take it along for her to open tomorrow. This is my last day to be the mother of a teenager. (What is the sound of one mind, boggled?)

I need to fix something for breakfast. I also need to decide if I am going sweet or savory with the glazed carrots for today’s tribal feast.

As I was climbing into bed last night, my foot nudged a plastic bag containing burgundy cashmere-blend yarn. This is the yarn which was entwined with the Noro Kureopatera that I separated out to make that cropped sweater last year. BittyBit may get a red scarf for her birthday, after all.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

♪♫Just hear those sleigh bells jinglin' ♫♪

I woke up a little before 3:00 [but I went to bed before 10:00, so it’s not as bad as it sounds] and put the finishing touches on Willow’s and Lark’s presents. They are also getting knitted ornaments, as are the Bitties, whose presents are stacked here by the computer desk. Wrapping those will be my next task, after I sluice off and get ready for work.

I celebrated with soft-boiled eggs and toast. I think I will take a tuna-fish sandwich to work, but am not sure what knitting to take. I could work on the baby hat, I suppose, but I am in the mood for something faster. And I need to come up with something for BittyBit’s birthday, which is in a few days. Maybe a big purple scarf from the leftover Malabrigo, which would certainly be soft enough for little-girl cheeks and neck. Last year she was all into orange; this year it’s purple.

No clue what to give LittleBit for her birthday tomorrow, either. Maybe the Ronco Home Tattoo Removal Kit? It slices, it dices, it even makes coleslaw! Maybe I should just go to Racetrac and get myself a hot cocoa and hush. I’m a wee bit cranky this morning; self diagnosis: Santa Deprivation Syndrome. He is up to his ears in elves and toy bags, as all good Santas should be. I have not seen him since the party at Middlest’s, a week ago Monday, though we have chatted and emailed and spoken several times on the phone. He will have Christmas with his tribe, I will have Christmas with mine, and I will be amazed if life slows down sufficiently for either of us that we can see each other before the new year arrives.

So tonight I have planned mischief with some of the single women I know: a trip to see The Princess and the Frog, complete with tiaras (I hope). Because Heaven knows we have each kissed more than our fair share of toads!

Short day at work today, though not as short as last Friday, and jeans/T-shirts/sneakers are the uniform of the day. There is Godiva in my desk at work, if not as much as there was before I typed four out of five depo summaries for one of my old lawyers yesterday, and there are those luscious chocolate-covered macadamia nuts that Brother Sushi brought me back from a recent trip to Hawaii. I will just munch my feelings today and go to bed fat and sassy.

I am taking a friend to the airport in about an hour. I’d better get moving!

Sheepie Pops

I want these on my next birthday cake! Too cute! And speaking of cute, lookie here!



No, she is not offering the opening prayer in Relief Society. Fourthborn has loaned me a pair of slacks which are perfectly modest, and a blouse which is imperfectly so. I like the cut of the blouse and will attempt to copy it in a less diaphanous fabric.

I think her name is Celeste. Maybe if you click on the picture to embiggen it, you can see the smirk on Santa’s face. We’ve seen that look around here a lot lately, on one Santa or another.

I am almost done making Christmas presents. I think. Delivered Brother Sushi’s to him last night after a long, rambling and mostly hilarious visit with Firstborn. One that did not come with a checklist. It was lovely to slow down to Human Standard Time instead of Red Queen in Off with Her Head mode. Good visit with Brother Sushi, too, if a shorter one, and then it was back into checklist mode, to run by Fourthborn’s and exchange dolls and doll boxes, then some drive-by knitting (maybe half an hour?) with friends who were amazed to see me so awake at nearly 9:00. Yeah, me too. They asked if I had had some serious caffeine late in the day.

I also came clean as to why I’ve been leaving Knit Night consistently earlier than usual. (That would be to come home and talk to The Boy.)

Yesterday was full of all sorts of surprises, most of them delightful. A box of Godiva from my attorney, and then a walk over to Exceedingly Nice Restaurant for lunch on his dime and some discussion that may help to keep me assigned as his secretary after my friend returns to full duty.

I am starting to feel like a legal secretary, to understand how all the bits come together to provide a good defense for our clients. I like working with him, and I love having the freedom to walk around the office, un-tethered to the switchboard. I will be relieving at switchboard tomorrow, but that’s fine. [Oh, I probably should tell him that.]

We now return you to your regularly scheduled knitting. Two small Christmas projects to finish, and BittyBit’s birthday gift, and then I can knit a sweater for Celeste while I order and wait for the yarn for Fourthborn’s Fiancé’s hoodie. I haven’t tried the tie skirt on her yet, but she’s enough smaller than Blessing [and way smaller than whatever Fourthborn renames Jessica] that I think there will be no problem. The next dolly arrival should be Beyla, sometime after Valentine’s Day. A satyress, a vampire, and a unicorn walk into a bar. Sounds like the set-up for a good joke and a whole raft of adventures. Although Beyla is going to be so short that she will just walk under the bar.

Driving in today.

I have Jessica’s box ready to go into the trunk. Brother Sushi’s present is wrapped. I have something for my attorney. There is a knitting project underway, and I know what I want to make for Willow and Lark.

Had a really good talk with NintendoMan last night. Just very calm and honest. I really appreciate his forthrightness.

Time to load up the car, take the recycling and trash out to the street, and head into work. Knit Night tonight; I’ll pick up Fourthborn and Fiancé at work, swap dolls, and go on to meet my fellow knitters. Sometime during the evening, I’ll drop by Brother Sushis. I am slipping into check-it-off-the-list mode as we speak.

It will probably be an early night tonight, but I want to spend time with my girlfriends. I am planning an outing for Thursday night. Hilarity shall ensue...

Dolly dilemma solved!

I’ve posted this on Facebook already, so for some of you this will be old news. Fourthborn and I have each solved our problem of having a doll we thought we would love, but don’t. She has a DOT Delphine who doesn’t fit the character she had in mind. And Jessica is just too big and heavy for me to hold onto. My hand aches when I wrap it around her waist to pick her up. Fourthborn was going to sell her Delphine and use the money to buy a similar mold in a smaller size. I was thinking of a smaller Iplehouse doll. And I was kinda coveting Delphine and wishing that she would not be going out of the family. While Fourthborn has been playing dress-up with Jessica and wondering how to bring up the subject of some sort of trade.

So at Christmas I will give Fourthborn the alternate hands and feet, plus the shoes, and she will keep Delphine’s outfit which is lovely and well-made but prompted the “Auntie Fourthborn, is that doll dressed modestly?” query from BittyBit at one of the tribal feasts last year. And she will give me a pair of shoes; maybe the tie skirt I made for Jessica will fit Delphine, with a little tweaking. And I will have a new doll, nameless and naked except for a pair of shoes and maybe a spare wig. Oh, and vampy teeth.

No, we will not be calling her Bella.

In non-doll, non-Distraction news, the concert went well at the stake center tonight. I have been reading through some of my Bloglines and catching up on what’s going on with friends and family. Yesterday I got the piecing done on one of the grandson’s Christmas stockings. Had thought to work on the second one this afternoon, but a nap won out over that. I am eating a clementine while typing and keeping one eye on my Facebook tab for a yoohoo! from chat.

Tomorrow night for FHE there will be a caroling opportunity, assuming the hostess is over whatever bug kept her home from church today. And I think, crossing my fingers and toes and maybe even my eyes, I might make it to Knit Night on Tuesday. Will probably go to the temple after work on Wednesday. And I have some mischief planned for Christmas Eve. No, it does not involve the Distraction.

I turned the heel on the second baby sock at church today and am galloping toward the toe. Need to figure out what I will be working on next. Also need to remove the October and November sections from my planner and replace them with January and February. Have I mentioned that I’m just a little Distracted?

It’s always the last place you look.

Please excuse the mess. I was standing in the bathroom, washing my hands, and I turned to look into my studio, when my gaze dropped. There it was! It is now plugged into my sewing machine. I also need a heavy-duty extension cord, because the plug for my machine has three prongs, while the outlet only has two. The power cord is about a foot too short to reach the grounded outlet, and while I am ecstatic at having [most of] what I need to make the boys’ Christmas stockings, I am not enthusiastic enough to rearrange the furniture again. Especially after spending the better part of an hour rummaging through boxes for the footfeed, only to discover that I should have been thinking outside the box. Literally.

I came home last night, finished my eggnog milkshake, and took a three hour nap. Which meant that I was uncharacteristically awake when NintendoMan called, and able to converse somewhat intelligently with him. May I just state for the record how much I like smart men. We talked a little about politics and seem to be somewhat on the same page. He likes a lot of the same talk radio hosts that the children’s father did, but if that’s the most annoying thing about him [so far], I can at least rejoice in the fact that his hearing is way better than that of the children’s father, and [hypothetically] I would have a chance of finding some place in the house where I could escape the voices. I sometimes think that talk radio was as much a means of shutting out the opinions and needs of the female part of the family as it was about becoming aware of stupidities all along the political spectrum. I may be oversensitive on that topic.

The luncheon at work yesterday was delicious, as usual. I partook of it sensibly and was both alert and productive for my last hour of work. It was nice to leave the office at 2:00, pick up a Christmas present that was being held for me [something that one of my co-workers gave the managing attorney for Secret Santa; I called the shop where she found it, about 15 seconds after getting back to my desk], take Jessica/Honor/Grace/Eve? to Fourthborn at work, so she can play with her and put measurements into the spreadsheet, grab the aforementioned milkshake, and come on home.

It’s after midnight. I might be ready to go back to bed for awhile. Or I may unpack one last box before hitting the sack. I think there will be some serious shredding later today, and maybe a few more pictures hung up here or there. I have another drive-by-fooding of the missionaries tonight.

It’s a very good thing that I am used to being on my own, entertaining myself, and just generally staying out of trouble. It is good to be able to say, when NintendoMan asks how my day went, that I accomplished this or that, that I like what I do, and to feel that I bring more than a pair of warm lips to the equation. I am also glad that I started sorting through stuff and finding new homes for things I no longer need, before Heaven decided to [sweetly] complicate my life with this new development. I would hate to be the same shy, clingy person I was when I first married the children’s father. I feel as if, with each box emptied and its contents allocated, I am also setting my emotional house in greater order, making room for new possibilities.

It’s a good place to be.

While looking for the footfeed...

I opened several boxes and found 1.5 pairs of commercial socks plus three handknit pairs. My guest towels. The big brown fleece blanket that I bought when Sooz came to visit. A large cotton blanket. The sheets which fit the inflatable bed. All manner of table linens.

I hung two pictures and one decorative object on the bedroom wall.

Found more sheets for my bed. A couple of T-shirts I had not seen since before the move last year. The sheepie PEZ dispenser that Fourthborn gave me. I ate the PEZ as a reward for being so domestic.

I did not find the footfeed. But I baked the tart.

And then I chatted with my favorite elf until Facebook spazzed, so he called me, and we talked until ridiculously late, but this morning I am rested and peaceful and happy. ♥

I will stop before all y’all go into sugar shock. I am headed into work with the pecan tart and looking forward to a short day, with plenty of time for daydreaming.

Knit Happens!

I finished the cuff on the second baby sock while sitting in the hall at church last night, waiting to speak with Bishop.

Baking tonight for the office luncheon tomorrow.

Heading out the door in hopes of catching the train today. Though if I drive in, I can have hash brown sticks with breakfast, and I am suddenly ravenous.

@Secondborn: feel free to glom any and all of the photos I posted on Facebook last night. If that doesn’t work, I will email them to you in small batches while I am baking, if you remind me. We had some major red-eye going on, but you know how to fix that. At Facebook resolution, it’s not so obvious.

Food review: the Michelina ravioli lunch that I got for $1 at Walmart the other night was worth maybe half that. I counted *six* mushy ravioli. No wonder it was only 250 calories! And the sauce was on the bitter side. Blech! I am taking the chicken alfredo lunch today. I am not hopeful.

@Fourthborn: I made copies of the red-light ticket for your sibling and will try to remember to swing by your work on my way home tonight so she can take care of that. [Making a note to myself to print off an affidavit and get it notarized at work today, to drop off with the original at the police station.]

A Patcwork of Three Mini-Posts with Minimal Editing

Hi, honeys, I’m home!

A Myth Is as Good as a Mile...

So, Leda and the swan is definitely not the image I wanted to convey. [Especially not after googling it and seeing some of the Renaissance art that arose from it, or reading Yeats’ sonnet!] Ewwww!

What I meant to convey was the surprise of finding a friendship that suddenly appears to be on the cusp of becoming more. [It has obviously been way too long since I had my nose in a copy of Bulfinch’s Mythology.]

Yes, it had also been obviously way too long since I had been properly kissed, but that is another subject entirely. And it has been dealt with, in a most satisfactory manner. [My children are gagging, as we speak.]

Knit happened, last Saturday. After two false starts, maybe three, and the strong temptation to haul out my childbirth words, I got 40 stitches onto a minuscule needle and began the cuff to the second sock. As of this writing, the cuff is nearly 3/4 done.

Sundown Fever and the Good Samaritan

I’ve thought about this recently.

Last week I took the belated birthday presents over to Secondborn and 2BDH. They very kindly and generously sent home two meals’ worth of deliciously seasoned pasta because they love me, and they know that my life is crazy-busy, and I don’t always have time to cook. That, my friends, is love in action, and it is the basis for a happy life.

When I got there, I was very much in checking-things-off-the-list mode. Birthdays? Check! Presents? Check! Hugs for the kids and the grandkids? Check! Off to the next task? Check! And I felt bad [i.e., cranky with myself and more than a little guilty], because part of me very much wanted to stay and visit, and part of me was afraid that if I sat, I would fall asleep [and maybe drop my grandson] and not get everything checked off my list. And let’s be completely honest here, there was also the distinct possibility of some sweet conversation with Brother Complication, but I wasn’t ready to divulge that at the time.

“Sundown Fever” is what my dad called the behavior I manifested, the summer I was 20. I would come home from lunch, be too tired for dinner, go straight to bed. But let a man call, and I was suddenly awake and ready to go in 15 minutes or less. I have been leaving Knit Night early, in part because I truly was tired, but also because of Brother Complication, a/k/a NintendoMan, whose schedule is several hours out of sync with my own. Hence the talking till 11:30, chatting till midnight, etc., leaving me wide awake at 1:00am and sleeping in until 6:00. I’ve told him that he is seriously cutting into my knitting time. [And my REM time, and my reading time, and my blogging time.] Remember in the first Rocky movie, when Burgess Meredith told him, “Women weaken legs.”??? Men weaken schedules. Do I want to go back to my emotionally tidy, quiet life of a few weeks ago? Not on your daguerrotype! I just want enough time every day to do all the things I want to do. Oh yeah, also the ones I need to do.

Narrowly Evading the Spiked Punchbowl

Building management hosted their annual Christmas party for the tenants. I look forward to this every year, for the potstickers filled with cream cheese and crabmeat. This year they were filled with chicken or something else that was bland, innocuous, and presumably cheaper. None of the sweet/tart, velvety lushness which is cream cheese. The orange chicken was better-than-OK [sorry, not as good as Panda Express] and cut into chunks that were too big for a ladylike bite. One chunk assassinated my plastic fork. It was really sad, especially since my thumb ricocheted and got baptized in orange sauce.

No, you can’t take me anywhere.

My attorney was in trial, so I caught up my desk. I brought Honor/Jessica to work and looked over at her from time to time. She’s lovely, every bit as beautiful as she was on the website. And I am just not feeling the love. [It’s not her; it’s me.] Blessing touches my heart every time I see her. Honor/Jessica just looks like every other pretty resin girl her size; she no longer reminds me of Firstborn and LittleBit. I may very well end up selling her at the end of January, when I can transact business in DoA’s Marketplace.

OK, that’s it for now. I have some good pictures of last night’s Santafest at Secondborn’s house, but first I need to recharge the batteries in my phone before I can share them.

My name is Leda. There is this swan…

He has been hanging about my neighborhood for awhile. I think his intentions are honorable...

Great fun at the doll meet-up last night. No, I did not take pictures. I was hungry, and I wanted to visit. One of the other women is LDS; she remarked on seeing me at the singles’ conference last month. She collects porcelain dolls and so is not on Den of Angels; her daughter collects ball-jointed dolls. Blessing behaved nicely at the meet-up and did not kick any of the other dolls with her hooves. Fourthborn’s MoMo sat in her lap, looking suspiciously angelic.

Trainman picked me up for breakfast yesterday [no, he is not the swan who has been hanging about, though he is one of my wingmen (ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom)].

Still looking for the foot-feed for my sewing machine. I will bend the Sabbath ever so slightly and dig through more boxes after church. I really do not want to have to make two stockings entirely by hand!

As you can tell, I am still a little sleep-deprived, thus word-deprived. But now it’s time to put on my shoes and my lipstick and go pick up my friend for church.

I feel like me again. Mostly.

My life, already scheduled to the hilt, has been sent careening by the introduction of a New Complication. Not an unwelcome one, but one that causes me to feel as if I were at day one of plate-spinning school [old greeting card that I bought for somebody but never sent, and found recently while puttering]. There are phone calls and emails and chats, oh my!

This is playing hob with my knitting and blogging; last night was the first time in a week that I got to bed before midnight. I dropped off the cookies for the ward party at my home teacher’s house, skipped the party entirely, and hit the hay at 7:47 , waking a little after 2:00. I am now heading into my studio to steal some sewing time. There are two precious little boys who need Christmas stockings, and the Internet is blessedly quiet; I’m going to make the most of it.

The silence in certain quarters re: yesterday’s post, is deafening. Perhaps they are staging an intervention? Just remember, ladies, whose idea it was for me to go on Facebook...

[Actually, apparently, Whose idea. I can hear the chortling in Heaven as we speak. I think it’s time for a little chat.]

Baked cookies for tonight’s ward party.

Fourthborn, the dress fits her well; thank you so much! Pictures this weekend?

Did not spend much time on Facebook last night. Spent it under the moostletoe, instead.

Distracted.

And about to be late for work. Stupid Facebook!

If it’s Tuesday, this must be Knit Night (not!)

It is 6:10am; do you know where your mother is? The answer to that musical question is found in the third segment of the old folk song, “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” I am in the kitchen, baking cookies for tonight’s Relief Society Christmas party/dinner. [Dinah, like Middlest’s ex, is AWOL.] And we are taking advantage of Mother Nature’s icebox by cooling the fresh cookies, on parchment, on the cookie sheet, out on top of the window unit that keeps the living room bearable in August.

Obviously, I am driving in today. The cookies and the two cans of cranberries will spend the day in the trunk.

Last night was the first in several in which I did not wake at 2:00am with screaming ankles. My friend who is a retired nurse has diagnosed hives from the iodine in all the salt I have consumed since Thanksgiving. I suspect that there is also a metaphorical component, something which is bugging me just under the surface of my life, and when I solve the metaphor, the hives will magically clear up.

I could, of course, be wrong. That happens fairly often.

And now I am out the door...

[New] Mooning about...

An alternate voice. I liked New Moon somewhat better than Twilight. I like Jacob and Alice better than most of the other characters, because even though he is a werewolf and she is a vampire, both seem to have a solid grasp on reality.

I have been that wimpy, obsessed woman, yearning and mooning over the man who was just out of my reach, which is maybe why I feel so impatient with Bella. Ack, honey, just get through calculus, figure out what you want to study in college, other than how to become undead as painlessly as possible, bring something to your marriage besides nubility and wistfulness.

As my mother once explained to me, marital intimacy is for grownups. [I could have used a little more exposition on why that is; I tried to give more context to my girls than I had received. And may I hasten to add: being physically intimate does not, per se, confer adulthood. In case any of you are laboring under that misapprehension.]

A good marriage has a healthy amount of physical intimacy: hugs, kisses, backrubs, and the mommy-and-daddy stuff. But first and foremost there should be spiritual intimacy, and emotional intimacy, and a meeting of the minds. And all this needs to be kept in balance. Passion alone does not a good marriage make, even when the passion is mutual and endures over time. Spiritual connection exalts the physical relationship and sanctifies discourse, but a marriage without appropriate physical contact may be insufficient inoculation against temptation.

And I think this is one reason why online relationships can go so badly, so quickly, even when it is not adulterous for the parties to be in communication. It is all too easy for the emotional and the intellectual aspects to override the spiritual, and with no physical presence [body language is such an effective reality check] to ground the relationship, people fall in love with a fantasy compounded of words and emoticons and are disappointed when they attempt to impose their fantasy what-if on the corporeal what-is.

Which of course assumes that both parties are behaving with perfect integrity. If one or both are predatory, all bets are off.

I puttered a lot on Saturday. I think about stuff when my hands are busy.

I have been absolutely stunned by music this weekend. Coming home from the yarn shop on Friday night, I heard somebody [Josh Groban?] singing “O Holy Night”, and it was a good thing I was only a couple of blocks from home, because it completely undid me. I was signing bits and pieces of it while driving one-handed, and the Spirit overcame me during the second verse: tears, sobs, and a sudden inability to sing along. Happened again tonight during the First Presidency’s Christmas broadcast. The Tabernacle Choir sang “For Unto Us a Child is Born”, and I lost it. And the closing hymn was “Silent Night”; when we joined the Choir for the third verse, I had to sign because I was weeping.

I would blame this on hormones, but we are officially done with that, remember? I think this is directly connected to my attempts to obey the prompting to “open your heart” which I received [repeatedly] at stake conference two weeks ago.

It’s been a long day, and I’m going to bed now. Night, y’all.

Thankful for my computer, and my printer.

Can you imagine how delighted the old prophets would have been, to sit down at a keyboard and type the revelations of God, then send them out via the Internet? Instead of inscribing them on parchment, or writing them on metal plates in Egyptian shorthand?

I learned to type on a manual typewriter, and if you were to sit on my couch and listen to me type, you could hear it in my touch. Bangety-bang, clackety-clack. Sometimes I almost miss reaching up for the return lever. I remember when IBM brought out their Selectric typewriters, with the little metal ball that rotated, and the tape that engaged when you hit the backspace key and lifted each mistake off the page. [My children are going whaaaat????]

I remember the MagA, where a page and a half of information was stored on a thick magnetic Hollerith-sized card. Made statistical typing at an accounting firm into a [relative] piece of cake, and my typing speed soared to approximately 120wpm because I could go back and fix things later. I went to MagA training in 1976 and was expected to train the rest of the typing pool. IBM had figured out that the learning curve was approximately six weeks. I had it in three days, by the grace of Heaven. Our entire typing pool was up and running on the new system in a couple of weeks, although we only had one of the $10K MagA machines and had to take turns using it.

All this is apropos of what? I am teaching the lesson in Relief Society tomorrow. I went to the Church’s website, printed off a copy of the First Presidency’s message for December, and am now headed to the couch to mark it up and pray over which portions to emphasize in my lesson. If I do any handouts, I will copy the talk into Word and separate it into sections or wordstrips.

What would have taken me hours of hand-lettering or calligraphy [because I am primarily a visual learner, and all about the visual aids] is now accomplished in a matter of minutes. Which leaves me more time for prayer and ponder-ish-ness, as one of my kids might say.

Yes, there will be knitting today. Knit happens on a regular basis, chez Ravelled. But first there will be reading, and breakfast, and writing, before the mundane kicks in. And I am pretty excited about that.

I am *so* driving in today!

If the weather cooperates, I will head to Whirled Fibers after work, then to a doll meet with Blessing, then to the dance. And if the weather is yucky, I will head home to my fireplace and my couch and my knitting.

I learned to drive in Idaho. I know how to drive in the snow which they are teasing us, might happen.

Middlest’s divorce may be final. This would be a good thing. [May the mother of her STBX’s child plague him all the days of his life.] And may Heaven smile upon that poor, unsuspecting baby, who asked for none of this. Bad news is, said child should have been my grandchild; good news is, I do not have to share him/her (don’t even know if the baby is a girl or a boy) with the Wicked Witch of South Texas, and LaBimba will have her as a MIL.

OK, I’m done. I will make sure to stop at Racetrac on my way to work and pick up a jumbo hot chocolate to wash the bad taste out of my mouth.

The Legwarmies [on Ravelry] went to their new home yesterday. Proud mama was delighted; I told her to not let another of the young mamas in our office see her leave with them, because other mama had been seriously coveting them at lunchtime.

Knitting booties with the leftovers but suddenly ready to be done with this yarn for awhile. I need to get with Fourthborn’s Fiancé and work out pattern, color, and yarn for the hoodie he wants. And after that is Secondborn’s birthday scarf and something for BittyBit [probably a gift card to the bookstore; that’s what BittyBubba got for his birthday, and it takes the knitting pressure off].

I posted this on Facebook last night, but for those of you who are resisting its siren call:



Don’t stand under the Moostletoe with anyone else but me, no no no!

I should be sitting in front of the fireplace.

Preferably with a small spoon and a large jar of Nutella. And maybe Diana Krall murmuring in the background. And somebody sitting on the other end of the couch, rubbing almond oil into my poor, neglected tootsies.

[I keep telling all y’all, my fantasies are pure as the driven snow. I probably don’t want to know about yours.]

I actually managed to get out of the house early enough to ride the train. Did not have much to say, here on the blog, and little that required my attention on Facebook. Dropped a glove on my way into the station but discovered it when I put my bag down on the bench to look for my pass. And thankfully, I was enough ahead of schedule that I had time to go back and find it face down on top of a puddle, and to board the train a good five minutes before departure. By the time we reached the second station, it had begun to snow: big, fat lazy flakes taking their own sweet time, somersaulting, leapfrogging over one another. Every time we stopped, it was the same story.

(It reminded me of the time we were at CiCi’s Pizza and unbeknownst to me, the lid was loose on the Parmesan cheese; suddenly I was having a little pizza with my cheese. The girls still laugh about that, and on those rare occasions when we go out for pizza together, they always check the container before passing it to me. Good times!)

Another good night’s sleep. My visiting teacher came last night, and we had our usual great visit. I went to bed a little after 10:00 and woke at 4:27, so at least six hours of thumb-wrestling with the Sandman.

I took torso measurements on my new doll, and Fourthborn is going to make a tunic for her from a handkerchief or bandanna, so I can at least take her out of the box. I have what I think is a great idea for a photo-shoot with both dolls, but it requires both of them to be fully and chastely dressed.

In knitting news, I finished the addition to the second baby legging, have cast on for a bootie, and am halfway down the cuff on that. I may very well finish the cuff on the train this morning, and if not then, on the ride home tonight.

In exchanging emails with Fourthborn, I realized that I had not even thought to check SOOM’S website for the current monthly doll. Nope, not even tempted, although there were a couple of details on her costume that I thought were interesting and would be easy enough to replicate. So I am waiting for Beyla to arrive sometime between Valentine’s Day and my birthday, and then I will probably delete SOOM from my bookmarks. Raising five girls provided a lifetime’s worth of drama, and I feel no need to [literally] import more.

I just do not see my life as a maternal Star Wars trilogy cycle, with the current period titled Mom Wars: The Resin Years.

A belated happy birthday to 2BDH; I called him on Monday in case yesterday got hectic, which it did.

Sleep is a lovely and under-appreciated thing.

I skipped Knit Night entirely. Took half an hour of PT after miraculously zeroing out my desk at work, something that is not likely to occur again before the Second Coming, beat most of the traffic, grabbed a burger and some tots [mmm, tots!] at Sonic, and came home.

I was too tired to extract the new doll from her box. Too sleepy to putter around the house. I played a bit on Facebook, returned some messages, and was in bed well before 9:00pm. Woke a little after 3:00 this morning, feeling fit as a fiddle [if not necessarily ready for love].

So, a little tweaking of my work responsibilities yesterday. The secretary who had hand surgery is back on light duty; she takes over switchboard today. The previous switchboard operator comes into the back and takes over some of my word processing duties. I continue as temporary legal secretary for roughly the next three months, until our friend is released by her doctor to full duty.

I think my attorney is back in trial today; they were picking a jury yesterday afternoon. My mentor was sick yesterday, so I was able to let the non-urgent stuff slide and finish paying bills, transcribe a couple of tapes for another attorney, etc., while struggling to stay awake.

I love having my fireplace on, and my hands are already starting to dry out because of it. I had to slather them with lotion yesterday.

A small disappointment in the doll-clothing department. As I posted on Facebook, I tried to dress the new doll this morning and discovered that I had miscalculated her waist measurement when designing the skirt. It will not clear her hips. So she is back in the box, because if you think naked Barbies are disturbing [and I always did, a little], you would not believe the glorious pulchritude of this doll. We are not turning my living room into Hefnerland.

If Fourthborn likes the skirt, it will probably fit one of her smaller dolls. I do not think it will clear Blessing’s hooves, though I haven’t tried that yet, besides which I think I want to keep her in cool colors like teal, grey, smoky plum, et al, the better to coordinate with her dark aqua / pale teal hooves.

[You guys don’t mind if I mumble to myself, do you?]

I am hoping to find more ties in the same colors at the thrift store, because they are perfect for [name??]’s hair and skin tone. And I am resisting the temptation to start saving for a smaller doll who could wear the skirt; I am crazy about these big girls. I think the skirt will be miles too long for my Beyla, although I could remove the casing at the waist and shorten it from the top. There’s a thought. Can you tell that I really do not want to let go of this skirt?

I will have to try it on Fourthborn’s Nikolai, who is already wearing a pouty expression and thus should not be uncharacteristically irked at having to impersonate a dressmaker’s dummy.

The outfit I admired at the Iplehouse website is roughly 20% off. I am tempted, and it would solve the problem of NDS [naked doll syndrome]. I wonder how awful the postage would be? [$22, that’s how awful. Fourthborn, if it’s still available when you order your JID’s, I might like to piggyback. Or I may just wait until my bonus hits and order a whole raft of shoes and boots and other things that I can’t easily duplicate.]

I need to replace some items in my own closet, first.

You are very, very sleepy...

Yes, I am. Plan A was to come home and do laundry last night. It was quickly replaced by Plan B, which was to come home and make a blouse for Jessica (to be renamed when I can rub two brain cells together).

I picked up Fourthborn and Fiancé when they got home from work, but we skipped the formal box-opening photos. I need to take some measurements for Fourthborn; she wants to make a blouse or tunic for Jessica from a handkerchief or bandanna.

Plan C came into effect when I got home and found an impromptu dinner invitation from a friend. Followed by a quick visit to Firstborn’s to deliver an gag gift and a challenge.

Silly quiz on Facebook has determined that I am Winnie the Pooh. I demur! I sent the quiz off to a bunch of friends and family, with the comment that I feel more like the love child of Kanga and Tigger. Maternal, nurturing, and bouncing off the wall. Just not bouncing very high (yet) this morning. A slice of pumpkin pie might help take care of that, especially if I can stop off at Racetrac for a tall hot chocolate.

I may pass on Knit Night tonight. Don’t want to, but somebody needs to catch up the laundry around here, and I seem to be the most likely candidate.

I called the PO yesterday as soon as they were open and spoke to our Express Mail guy, who reassured me that Jessica had spent the weekend safely locked up in the mailroom of our building. Which would explain why building security had no record of her arrival; she slipped in quietly with the rest of the mail.

She’s home, and safe, with all of her fingers (20) and toes (20). I ordered an alternate pair of hands, and she came wearing her flat feet and with a pair of high heeled feet. The wig is gorgeous and very long. I haven’t had a chance to try it on her yet. She came with her eyeballs installed, and her faceup is perfect.

I am happy. I am reasonably well-fed. And I am going to be mainlining Cherry Coke today.