Whew!

First of all, thank you for the supportive comments! It is one thing to know something is right. [In this case, giving my honest opinion.] It can be quite another to step out in faith and do it.

A series of emails wafted back and forth like badminton birds yesterday, before and after our respective meetings.

After I heard his reasoning, I agreed that we should alter our plans for Saturday night. It has to do with sustaining the leadership in his stake, and since that is something I do with my own local leadership, and because it also takes any time pressures off what we had planned to do before the dance, it is win-win all the way around.

I also got some other answers in the course of the day. Yes, he is dating other women. Don’t get huffy on my behalf; I find this entirely reassuring. This is the way we used to do things when I was young, before people thought it was a good idea to fall into bed with one another. After I joined the church, I would occasionally date two or three different guys during the course of the week. One of the most well-liked and exceedingly chaste young women in my singles ward sometimes dated *four* in a week.

This was also before the day of the NCMO (Non-Committal Making-Out).

The new guy is behaving with Victorian propriety toward me. I presume his behavior is no less gentlemanly towards the other ladies. So I have nothing to fear, and nothing to be jealous of.

Plus, I leveraged another date for this week, so I am feeling rather like the cat that ate the canary.

Yesterday was a “me” day

Caught up on my Bloglines. Had a nice, leisurely workout, including adequate time on the machines; miraculously, I could get out of bed this morning under my own steam. Got my nails done.

Got a haircut, even though it’s only been a few weeks since the last one. It’s so hot here that my hair refuses to stay spiked. It just kinda lies on top of my head like an old hound on the front porch. Once in awhile it howls at me.

Had dinner with Brother Sushi. We were both in the mood for some excellent chicken fried steak, so he drove us up to the Stockyards, and we found a parking lot one block from Star Cafe, so all we had to do was cross the street midway and walk down the alley.

Sometimes you want a salad that is more ranch than rabbit food, and that’s what I got last night. A nice bowl of greens, a few cherry tomatoes, and a whole lot of ranch dressing. Ate. Every. Bite. Which is why more than half of my chicken fried steak and nearly half of my mashed potatoes are in the fridge, waiting for lunch tomorrow or dinner tonight, along with the untouched slice of pecan pie that will become breakfast shortly.

After he brought me home and I’d put the food away, I went out again into that heat. [It was 108°F/42°C when I left NailDude’s to go get my hair cut; it was still 96°F/36°C at 9:16p.m. Texas is not for wimps!] Picked up two half-gallons of milk: one for the house, and one to take to work for my breakfasts next week. And more juice, and two more cheap swimsuits to alternate until I can save up for a good one. I am starting to see those telltale spandex crumbs along the seams of the swimsuit I bought a couple of months ago.

Facebook is pretty good as an informal research tool. I asked if more expensive suits stand up better to chlorine, and the consensus, so far, is that they do. $32 per suit x6 suits per year at the current cannibalization rate = $192, as opposed to $80 to $120 from a catalogue. Sigh... a good swimsuit ought to cost no more than $25, and it ought to last for five years, and it should also make me look like I did before I had five children.

Oh, and automatically shave my legs every time I pull it on. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

I did something very brave last night. Two brave things, actually; the first was to put the six cartons of American yogurt back on the shelf and replace them with an experimental six-pack of Greek yogurt that cost a dollar more but has no corn syrup in it. I’ve learned to like freshly-grated nutmeg. I’ve adapted to natural peanut butter. I even eat broccoli! If successful, this will be the next healthy adaptation in my diet.

Emboldened by that, the other brave thing was my response to a question of the new guy’s in a recent email. (As you might suspect from what we know of his character thus far, it was nothing illegal or immoral, though given his abilities in the kitchen, it had the potential to be quite fattening, LOL.) The point is, he asked my opinion on something. And after some pondering, I gave it to him.

I was reared in the 50’s and 60’s. I am, by nature or nurture, a pleaser. “No, thank you” does not come easily to my lips, even at the ice cream store when I ask for a single dip and they ask if I would like a double. Yes, I would like a double. No, I am not going to order one.

Toward the end of my marriage, my opinions literally went unheard (talk radio, 24/7, at high volume because he was growing deaf), so I ceased to offer them. I was afraid that if I told him what I really thought, he would stop loving me. When I could keep silent no longer, and I did open up, that’s pretty much what happened. [Sometimes I hate being right.]

So, it is scary for me to be asked my opinion by a guy I just might possibly like, because there is the distinct possibility that my opinion might be ignored, or worse: I might say something he found ridiculous or offensive, and zoom! what is that black speck in the distance?

Brother Abacus ghosted on me, and a bunch of other women, several years ago. NintendoMan, when asked, at least had the integrity to tell me why it was never going to work, and I had to agree. (He gets full points for honesty, that one.) The new guy seems to have a lot of what I’ve been looking for, and thus far no red flags. The termites are usually beginning to crawl out about now, and I’ve kept an eye peeled for sawdust, but he seems to be the real thing, even if it’s way too early to know if he is The One.

I think I will take my piece of pie and pour myself a glass of milk and go listen to Brother Eyring for awhile. And maybe I will stop twitching.

Good stuff

Yesterday was a good, productive day at work. Brother Sushi called me mid-afternoon to tell me that his boss thought it would be a good idea for him to work overtime. Could we reschedule? So we will probably do something later today. I will have to work around my monthly drive-by fooding of the missionaries.

I won the two pictures I bid on. They are seat-belted in the back of Lorelai, and I need to bring them in before I go work out. The one is going to be stunning in my studio. I’m not sure where the other one should go, but it makes me grin (it’s a Norman Rockwell print).

I headed down to the yarn shop for a couple of hours, eating and stitching on Chutzpah’s skirt, then drove over to the dance and visited with friends and danced a little. Finally allowed myself to stay on the floor for the Cuban Shuffle, which is an exceedingly simple line dance to a catchy tune. I don’t like to display my learning curve in public, although I guess I do that all the time here on the blog.

Visited with a guy who comes to the dances intermittently. Found out what he does for a living, and it ties in rather neatly with what 2BDH does, so I took one of his business cards and gave him one of 2BDH’s. Secondborn, you might have to remind me to take that business card out of my purse and hand it over to your beloved.

I need to get my nails done. And a haircut. It’s so hot and humid out that my hair won’t stay properly spiked. And I need to do laundry, either that or buy more clothes. Taking care of the stuff I have seems more conducive to my long-range financial goals.

That big bright ball is up in the sky again. (Funny how that happens every weekend.) I think I will go say how-do.

So, the way to hear from my family...

Is to mangle a reference Harry Potter or to leave the S’more kit leftovers [of which there are a plethora] in my cubicle at work. Good to know.

Pray for frost, my blessings. If I tried to bring the 18(!!!) unopened Hershey bars home now, Lorelai would do an excellent impression of a chocolate fondue fountain.

I have an amusing HMO story to tell you. Those of you who are regular readers know that I have been wrangling with athlete’s foot for over two years, with varying degrees of success. When I had my well-woman last month, she looked at my foot and tut-tutted. And said that before she prescribed another week of Diflucan, she wanted to see my liver function tests.

I called back last Thursday, and her part of the practice was closed for the weekend. So I called back bright and early Monday morning and left a message for the nurse, who conferred with Doctor, who said my liver is just dandy, and we are going to try Lamisil, instead. They phoned it in to my neighborhood pharmacy, and I went by after work (and Zeke’s) to pick it up. The pharmacy tech apologized profusely and said that it wasn’t ready, would I mind waiting a few minutes?

Since (unlike other occasions) my feet were giving me relatively little grief, I smiled all the way up from my toes and told her I'd be back in the morning. Which I was, to be greeted by a different pharmacy tech who told me that my HMO had not approved it, and that Doctor needed to call them and explain why it was medically necessary, otherwise it was going to be $64.

Oye. I went to work and left them a message, only to have my cell phone die, and my charger back here in Fort Worth. After I charged my phone and checked my messages, my doctor’s office was quite naturally closed for the evening. So I called them back in the morning, and the nurse told me she had no idea what was up with the HMO, because it is a $4 generic prescription at Wal-Mart: would I like them to fax the Rx there?

Sixty dollars would buy a whole lot of yarn, so yes please.

Rather like the difference between “Diagon Alley” and “diagonally,” wouldn’t you say?

In other news, I think I finally have a workable idea for Chutzpah’s skirt. I have taken two scraps of lace leftover from Celeste’s silk necktie skirt and am embellishing them to a fare-thee-well. Beading may ensue. I wonder if I could make her a pair of sandals using silk ribbon for the straps and Ultrasuede or leather bits for the soles? Does anybody have two postage stamp sized scraps of mossy green Ultrasuede hanging about in your fabric stash?

[Hey, you don’t ask, you don’t get. If all else fails, I can always knit up and felt a bit of fabric for the soles.]

Happy Friday the Thirteenth, everybody!

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

Good day at work yesterday. We had a working lunch, catered by a local deli, and the meeting was both blessedly brief and truly interesting. The food was good, too, and I ate enough to refuel but not so much as to be drowsy. Half of the office took their lunch hour at the end of the day (i.e., got to leave that much earlier than usual; I was one of those), and the other half will do so today.

Came home and polished off my leftover fish and chips from Monday night, then went to the church for my meeting with Bishop (even more brief, interesting, and productive). After that meeting, I headed down to Secondborn’s to return the book I had borrowed when I had jury duty. Had a nice little visit with her

I *think* I am going to the temple tonight after work. I have some urgent, mundane stuff that needs doing; Mount Washmore is threatening to take over my hall, and I am the only likely candidate to deal with it. However, the laundry, like the poor, we will always have with us, and I try to favor the important over the urgent. Emphasis on the word try. Regardless of what Yoda said, in my life there most definitely is try.

As I wrote to a friend last night, I can feel winds of change beginning to move through my life. I think it must be like what happened when the angel “troubled the waters” at the temple (in the New Testament), and one person each year was healed. Not that I am feeling any great need for healing, at least on my own behalf.

I have no idea what’s ahead of me (I don’t usually get told anything as specific as I was when I asked Him why I was supposed to move to Fort Worth), but I almost always feel this way spiritually and emotionally before the next adventure happens.

Maybe the next adventure will be the discovery of a warp in the space-time continuum, and I will finally figure out how to seemingly get it all done in 24 hours because I have something like Hermione's hat or whatever that hat trick was that enabled her to play with time.

Naahhh, that would be too easy. And nowhere near elegant enough for the Father of All Blessings.

Blind, screaming panic? And a side order of S’mores.

So, there was an email waiting for me this morning, suggesting that he come over to Fort Worth, and we should go to dinner at Zeke’s. Which is, on the face of it, an excellent idea. However, as I told him, I am in the midst of disposing of old paperwork and finding new homes for things I no longer need, and right now the couch looks like the love child of a tornado and an IRS audit.

Hence the blind, screaming panic. We are not talking a state of messiness that equates with hoarding and the need for an intervention. We are talking about my desire to have a house that looks like what I think a Relief Society president’s house ought to look like. Which is nigh unto impossible given my calling, my commute, and my need to create.

But now I have fresh incentive to try.

The S’mores were well received at work yesterday. We had a mysterious computer glitch that took three or four hours to resolve. I grabbed a box of kim-wipes and started making S’more kits. Three dozen of them. Everybody got one, and there was much hilarity in the break room mid-afternoon.

I finished Chutzpah’s bloomers at Knit Night last night then came home and rummaged through my silk ribbon to come up with embellishments for the cuffs. Now to decide on which ribbon to lace through the buttonholes on the sweater, but she is basically modest, and now I can design and make her skirt.

I have no idea what I want to knit next. I think I will shred 100 things and then head over to the gym and see what bubbles up inside my head as I sploosh. That’s where I got the inspiration for S’morefest 2010.

Happy Wednesday, everybody. Knit something pretty, or hug somebody, or just sit on your [presumably tidier than my] couch and eat a S’more or three.

National S’mores Day???

My friend Lisa posted on FB that today is National S’mores Day. Google says that she’s right. Which makes a day I was already anticipating, even better.

Yesterday I had a fish Lean Cuisine for lunch. Fish was not-bad. Rice was execrable. So I went to Zeke’s for dinner, and I have enough leftovers for lunch or dinner today. I also have the promise of a home-cooked fish’n’chips dinner from the new guy, who has eaten the real thing in Old Blighty.

I am nearly done with the first bloomer leg on Chutzpah’s undies. Just need to grab the slightly larger needle I want to use to bind off: four-aughts as opposed to the five-aughts I have used for the greater portion of the fabric. (I geared down to six-aughts for the waist ribbing, so they have finally and properly been broken in.)

Truly enjoying the audio-book of Elder Eyring’s essays. What a blessing it is to live in a time when technology can bring me the words of the prophets, and I can listen in my car as I drive or as I sit in my bed with my feet up and my knitting well in hand.

What a great start to my day, and how touching it was to me, to hear phrases I recognize from my patriarchal blessing and see their application from a broader perspective.

Time to grab the gym bag (packed) and my checkbook and head out first for exercise, then for s’more supplies to take to work and share with my friends.

Thirty-five years ago today (Part One)

Girls, thirty-five years ago today your father was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in California. That will mean more to some of you than to others, but please remember that if your father and I had not joined the church and been introduced two years later, three of you would have been born to other families or would still be waiting to get your bodies. And you would be at least subtly different from the women you are today. Your spirits are eternal, and they are the blueprint for your bodies, but DNA has its own role to play.

Yesterday was a physically miserable day, some of it due to poor choices on my part, but mostly due to the fact that it is Texas and August. [I do not want to know how hot it was, but it felt like eleventy-twelve degrees.] Both ankles blew up, and I could not get shoes on my feet to go to church. And what wasn't puffing up like a blowfish, was melting. I know that horses sweat and men perspire and ladies glow, but yesterday you could have called me Seabiscuit and not been far off the mark.

Thankfully, it is not my month to conduct. I went back to bed and slept for five hours with my feet propped higher than my head, which helped somewhat. Also thankfully, I remembered the church CDs I brought home a few weeks ago, so I spent several more hours sitting up in bed, listening and pondering as my hands knitted round and round on a pair of undies for Chutzpah. I felt the Spirit, and I learned stuff, and I gave thanks for the Atonement. All of which we are supposed to experience when we go to church, so the day was not a total loss.

Mid-evening, one of my alarms started chirping. I got up on my stepstool and took out the 9V battery. The chirping did not cease. It was a few hours later that I realized I had taken the battery out of the smoke detector, when I should have taken it out of the carbon monoxide detector. (They are about three feet apart, and in a direct line in relation to my left ear as I sit here at the computer, so the confusion is understandable.) One of my friends suggested putting it (the device, not my ear; I was not having a Van Gogh moment) in the fridge, which is relatively soundproof. Another friend suggested that it might disturb the fruits and vegetables. I decided I would risk that.

I plan to pick up a replacement battery when I go out to the gym in a bit, and take the whole mess into work and have one of the guys get the old battery out and put the new battery in.

The cankles (considerably more anklish today than yesterday) and I hope you all have a happy, safe, productive, and relatively comfortable day.

I am in Third Nephi, in my CD Book of Mormon. Probably my favorite part, because that is what I read during the evening hours of the day I took my first discussion, and that is what gave me my [immediate] testimony of the Book of Mormon, and therefore of Joseph Smith. Two weeks from today, *I* will have been a member of the Church for 35 years. What a blessing that has been, and continues to be.

So I am going to enjoy the drive into work today, because it is going to sound like the red-letter (KJV) edition of the Holy Bible, which is what I grew up with, come to life. If you want to know why, dust off your own copy of the Book of Mormon, or ask one of your weird LDS friends to get you one.

No alarums; only excursions.

First, to The French Knot, where I bought four cards of 4mm silk ribbon in greens to teals, two cards of #8 silk perle thread, and two hanks of soy-silk thread. Do not ask me how much I spent, but it was less than the overseas shipping would have cost to order a single pair of undies for Chutzpah.

Her sweater is done; however, there is nothing matching for her southern hemisphere, so at the moment she is sitting semi-commando on top of the computer. She seems to be fine with that ~ she is a force of nature, after all ~ but I am not. Modesty is the word of the day, every day, chez Ravelled.

So I am knitting her a pair of bloomers or panties (won’t know what to call them until I see how the legs shape up), which I suspect will become the foundation for a skirt. Who knows: they may end up as leggings. Right now I am doing short-row shaping in the back to account for her buns and giving thanks that I do not have to make shaping decisions for the larger dolls. Thought it might be fun interesting, later, to knit teddies for Blessing and Celeste.

@Fourthborn: I am knitting the undies from the soy-silk, and it is a dream to knit. If you are not allergic to soybeans, this might be an option for something for you. I know this fiber comes in human-sized yarn as well as embroidery floss.

After the falling-down adventure in the needlework shop, I put everything carefully into my gym bag and splooshed in the pool for a little over an hour. Then I came home and got ready for the surprise 40th anniversary party for good friends (the ones with whom we lived for six weeks after we left Fredericksburg). Their kids handled everything, and it was simple and tasty and fun. The background music rocked. (Unlike at most of the singles dances, alas.)

On the way home, I stopped by Secondborn’s new house and got the grand tour. They have put in new hardwood flooring and are preparing to paint 2BDH’s office a lovely Tuscan green and the dining room a wonderful shade of red. (There are no bad shades of red. Well, maybe puce, which is not the color of upchuck as one might expect, but the color of raw liver. The Victorians, who were excessively fond of puce, were a strange lot.) 2BDH and their friend T were nailing baseboards back in place while I visited. I even got to see the “scary attic”.

They will be moving in later this month. The house is nearly three times the size of the house she was born in, yet to me it does not look or feel like a McMansion. Well done, kids, well done.

So then I came home and wound one of the wee hanks of soy-silk into a small ball and got started on Chutzpah’s undies. I would give you a visual, but they are undies after all and not some breathtaking bit of antique lace, and besides, my camera thumbed its lens at me and would only give me blurry shots.

Executive secretary just called me. No PPI with Bishop this morning, as he is either working or on call. So my appointment with him is now on Wednesday night.

Date #4 is under construction. Chaperones are all lined up. Life is good.

A weekend that begins with Nutella...

... is a promising weekend, indeed. And speaking of promises, I promise that I did not do all that damage in one go. I have been working on this jar for several weeks, though admittedly more often in the past two. The new guy is as fond of Nutella straight from the jar as I am, which inspired that little ditty on FB last night. With apologies to Brother Handel, although I am reasonably sure that had they had Nutella in his day, he would have composed with two hands on the paper and pen, and a spoon clamped firmly, upside down, between his teeth.



I finished the knitting and the weaving-in-of-ends this morning. Now I am waiting for it to be 10:00 so I may mosey over to The French Knot (conveniently located across the street from Lucile’s, but I am blissed-out on Nutella and unlikely to require a lobster fix), to see what they have in the way of silk ribbon to lace this up. But first I will mosey into my studio and look over my inventory on hand. Next project is a coordinating skirt; I am in the mood to sew something. And then I want to wind the silver grey Gloss Lace and get started on a sweater for patient Faith.

Yesterday was a reasonably good day at work. We had a new suit thrown at us, answer due on Monday, when I had three reports due for Attorney B. And several depositions and mediations to schedule for Attorney C. My new mantra is fast becoming “ohbleepwhatnow?” Which suggests that I have become a legal secretary indeed, judging from the expletives that erupt from neighboring cubicles throughout the day. [A veritable bleepstorm.] And which also suggests that I need to be spending at least two nights a week in the temple, to wear away at the desire to swear when under duress.

The world would be a happier place if, inside my head, I were channeling Spencer W. Kimball and not J. Golden.

I slept in until a little after 5:00 this morning. It is now approaching 7:30. I am almost ready to grab the gym bag and scoot on out the door. I can be on the recumbent bike while the yogaphiles are doing their thing in the big exercise room, and I might even be in the pool in time for water aerobics! I only have one thing that absolutely needs to get done at a certain time today. Looks like this might be a great day to putter and nap.

What is Valerie Bertinelli doing on the cover of AARP?

Barbara Cooper, her character on “One Day at a Time,” is sixteen. Forever. There is a picture of her inside the magazine, three-quarters profile viewed from the back, in a cerise (hot cherry pink) gown that has to be silk from the way it flows. Breathtaking.

My new white skirt (part of my temple clothing) arrived in yesterday’s mail and is nowhere near that impressive, but it fits. Barely. Which is why I am heading out to the health club in a few minutes. Well, that and the fact that it’s Texas in August, which as I posted on Facebook, is as close to Hades as I ever hope to get. The idea of being neck deep in cool, chlorinated water is even more appealing usual.

I had a shoe emergency yesterday. Driving in, I was nearly there when I realized that I had forgotten to grab work-appropriate shoes. Dashed into Wally World and picked up a pair of sandals, guessing at the size. And spent the day in foot misery. I have always hated the kind of sandals where there is a thingie between the big toe and its neighbor. And that was the only style they had, where I had a hope of it fitting over my crazy-high arches. By the end of the day, both feet were swollen up around the various straps, but I had been obedient, dadgummit!

I very happily peeled them off my feet and put them in a drawer, just in case I have another brainf@rt. I can still see faint impressions on the top of each foot. Yes, I have my clogs right on top of my bag.

How do women walk in that sort of sandal? I find it harder than navigating in high heels or platforms, not that I’ve done either since graduating from the interpreting program and its Sign Song performing group.

So, it’s Texas in August, and I am under-slept, and a little dehydrated in spite of my best efforts, and my ankles have cankled, and I just want to stay home in my jammies and sleep today, or spend the day on the couch, reading, with my feet running up the wall until my ankles calm down.

Plus, I was sneezing a lot yesterday. I need to check the pollen count. Could it possibly be ragweed season already? I don’t normally react like this, not since we moved out of the little house in Irving with its attic fan that concentrated the pollens as they flowed over our bed by a factor of at least 100 to 1. (Because later, when we were living in air-conditioned comfort in an apartment in Arlington, and the pollen count was 400, which used to send me over the edge, I would not even notice it.)

I probably need to go to the Chinese herbal shop and get a bottle of Ba Nguyen, which looks like rabbit berries but does a great job of strengthening my immune system. Which has taken a hit lately, what with a double dose of family drama plus the heat plus my workload plus the staying up too late on FB to write back and forth to the new guy. Oh, and plus church stuff, which is a pleasure and a privilege and most emphatically not a stressor but is the retaining wall into which all the stressors crash so spectacularly.

I want my mommy. I’m happy and safe and grateful and reasonably productive and I want my mommy.

I did not meet my friend Robi at the temple last night. I came home by way of Panda Express, visited briefly with Trainman at the station (I drove, he rode the train, I caught him as he was getting into his car), came home and went to bed at 8:00. Up again at 3:00. Not going to the service project tonight but will come straight home, unless I go to Vicki’s yarn shop again, and make it another early night.

Pool. Want pool. Chlorine, here I come!

I’ll take PTSD for $500, Alex.

I don’t know whose bright idea it was to have an unannounced fire drill five days after our bomb scare. If I could pick my feet up, I would drop kick his/her fanny up into the general region of his/her shoulder blades. Ordinarily, because of my knees, I just go stand by the door to the stairwell until the all clear is sounded. Or I sit at switchboard and handle the phones so the receptionist can participate.

Today I grabbed my purse, my phone, and my knitting and marched my unhappy self down seven flights of stairs. I was right behind a friend whose ankles, knees, and hips are even more discombobulated than my own. The need to step carefully in order not to mow her down is probably all that stopped me from somersaulting the last two flights, bumpety-bumpety-bump. It certainly couldn’t ache any more than I do right now.

I am so thankful that I have been exercising for three months. Otherwise I never would have made it. I had plenty of time to wonder if the words which immediately came to mind when I heard the fire alarm got verbalized in my frustration. So once we were back at our desks, I asked my friend if I had used any colorful language.

Not that she had heard. Whew!

If they had waited another week or two, I would have been just fine. Or if they had announced the quarterly fire drill, as they usually do. As it was, I was still distracted and anxious nearly an hour later, until that fact reached my conscious mind and I made it a matter of prayer.

Hey guys, prayer works. Just in case you were wondering.

I am home from the temple, and I think I am sufficiently unwound that I have some hope of falling asleep.

Unwound, but not unRavelled. Night, y’all.

I Nerds

This is the T-shirt I found at Wally World on Saturday morning.



I might wear it on date #4. The new guy, like me, is a passionate and omnivorous [but discerning] reader. Not to mention bespectacled.

The fourth and final Twilight book was not-bad. I was a little tired of wrangling the doll sweater, where I had gotten off-track [a-GAIN!] with my decreases and also mislaid DP needle #5, so I cracked the book open after church and was sucked into the vortex. I stood outside the courtroom after we were dismissed yesterday and read the last couple of pages.

What I liked: Carlisle is a righteous patriarch. Esme is a loving and loyal wife and mother. Bella stops whining! and begins to discover her talents and strengths, using them to bless the people she loves. She also learns to bridle her passions. Edward, always moral but somewhat dull, acquires a sense of humor and therefore a bit of personality. Jacob (my favorite male character) comes into his own, and finds peace. The holy fire which is maternal love is movingly portrayed. As is the joy which comes from having respect for marital intimacy sufficient that one waits until one is married, to experience it.

This book is very much about diversity and inclusion, but in Heaven’s way and not the current tepid politically-correct counterfeit. The men respect the women. The women respect the men. Jacob’s tribe finds true peace with the vampires, and vice versa, as they see how they are interconnected. Love and loyalty and honor win out over lust and selfishness and secret combinations.

And it is two women, Bella discovering her latent strengths and Alice doing what she knows she does best, who ultimately save the day.

Sisters, do not underestimate the power of one righteous woman in this sad and decaying world. And when we are true to ourselves and true to the Father who sent us here to succeed, when we support one another in love and faith and prayer and mutual acts of service, it shakes the foundations of Hell.

Do you wonder why the Adversary is seeking to destroy us through unchastity, distraction, depression? Do you wonder why he is working so hard against the family?

But our Father loved us so much that He provided a Savior for us. We cannot save ourselves. We can only improve ourselves incrementally through our own efforts; lasting change requires Divine intervention. And ultimately, since all Creation belongs to the Creator, the only gifts we can give Him that are truly ours to give, are our heart and our will.

I still struggle with this, because He made me smart, and sometimes I am too smart for my own good. But I can give you a metaphor. Recently the new guy and I were serving together, and at one point it was necessary for my hand to be enfolded in his. And my only, semi-coherent, thought was, “I know my hand is in there somewhere.” It was a moment of profound spiritual intimacy rather than physical intimacy, and some of you will know exactly what I am talking about, and for the rest of you I can’t explain it better because there are some things for which mere words are inadequate; you have to know them by the Spirit.

But when I trust my Father and put my hand in His, I can still feel my hand. I know it is in there somewhere. And I feel safe, and protected, and known.

Comfort Food (for Thought)

I am sitting here after jury duty, home and safe, eating the last of Saturday night’s tuna roll and counting my blessings, not the least of which are my friends.

I am one of those rare people who doesn’t have the tape playing in her head. You know the one. Not good enough. Not smart enough. Not whatever enough. I must have been standing in the collect cool stuff that your kids don’t understand line when the self-deprecating tape was being handed out.

Not that I am complaining, mind you. And not that I don’t have moments when I have to look myself in the eye and say, “That didn’t go well. Back up, apologize, and try again.” But on those days when my eternal goals seem very far away, and when I am frustrated with the glacial slowness of the sanctification process, it is oh so comforting to look around at the people I’m traveling with and recognize their essential goodness and feel Eternal fingers push the “refresh” button on the window marked COURAGE.

Thanks, y’all. Let’s please keep doing that for one another.

OK, this next is for my new friend Michele. Here is the link to the official Church info on personal and family preparedness, frequently referred to as provident living. [And not to be confused with the privately owned commercial site, Provident Living, where you may buy commodities to begin or round out your family’s preparedness program once you have designed it to suit your needs.]

As you will see, there are a number of useful links on the right side of that page. I suggest that you click on each in turn. One is a form that you can take to your local Home Storage Center (if you have one). We have one in Carrollton, a building that houses the Bishops Storehouse (where food orders ~ lists ~ prepared by RS presidents like me, under the direction of the bishop and signed by him, are filled at no cost to indigent members of the church), LDS Family Services, the Employment Center, the Home Storage Center, etc. I don’t know if there is one near you, or if you would have to drive to San Antonio or Austin or Houston. I know that ours serves an area roughly down to Waco and probably up into Oklahoma, and out into East Texas. I don’t know how many there are in Texas, but if there is one near you, members of the Church can make an appointment to do dry-pack canning of things like wheat, flour, sugar, beans, etc. I don’t know if non-LDS folks could do the same, but maybe you could combine efforts with some of your cousins who are members?

The idea is to store a year’s worth of stuff that would keep you alive and reasonably healthy. In recent years, they have emphasized the 72-hour kits and acquiring a three-month supply of stuff you might actually be enthusiastic about eating, in time of emergency.

I can promise you from my own experience that if you are stressed out and having to dip into your food storage, you want it to be something that tastes good to you. Otherwise, you will just gradually stop eating. I lost 21 lbs in three weeks, about 20 years ago, because we were living on past-its-prime oatmeal for two meals a day, sometimes three. Most of my kids cannot stand oatmeal, to this day. I cannot eat boiled wheat berries, because even though it’s a very healthy food; to me it smells like poverty and tastes like despair, and my taste buds revolt.

Also, if you do store the basic stuff, make sure you rotate it regularly and incorporate it into your diet; otherwise when you are suddenly eating cracked wheat cereal or whole-wheat bread after developing a taste for deadbread, your izzards and gizzards will do a convincing job of telling you that you are going to die, slowly and painfully and explosively.

I don’t remember if I have shared the $5 a week food storage plan, which these days is more like $8 a week but is still a fairly painless way to accumulate a year’s supply of the basics by spending a small amount extra each week, and at the year being able to call yourself obedient. Even I can spend an extra $5-8 a week on groceries without having to wonder if the lights will get cut off.

Which reminds me of something that Orson Scott Card wrote [loosely paraphrased here], that if you get the chance, move in next door to somebody who has a *two* years’ supply and then both families would, on average, be obedient.

Busy Day

Doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Before I hit the gym, I dashed through Wally World and picked up two new pairs of the denim leggings I like so much and a new summer shirt with paisleys cartwheeling all over it. Ergo, my workout was somewhat hurried but infinitely restorative.

The unpleasant necessity, for which I needed Brother Sushi’s assistance, went more smoothly than I had expected and took rather longer than I had hoped. The bright side to that was more time spent in his excellent company.

I drove back to Fort Worth and headed straight for Lucile's, where they serve that wonderful lobster bisque. [When the going gets tough, the tough go eat lobster.] And then I came home and set the alarm for a two-hour nap, but I only slept for about an hour and a half of it.

Then it was up, re-spritz my hair, put on the new shirt with the new leggings and my second favorite pair of earrings, and head over to Fern Parts with a detour to Lane Bryant because one of my bras had committed ritual underwire suicide when I was getting dressed at the gym. Which coincided neatly and mercifully with a sale.

May I just say that his place is a long, long way from my place? Well worth the drive. Neither he nor his late wife were afraid of putting a little color on the walls. Bigger than my half of the duplex, smaller than the house that Secondborn & Co. just sold (but probably of that era). Cozy, but not in the real estate sense of the word.

And he was not exaggerating when he said he could cook. I have the leftovers to prove it, waiting in the fridge in nice containers that will have to be returned. His son commented something like, “Looks like that is part of the plan.”

Had a blast. We all ate so much that there is no way we could have attempted the line dancing. He said we will have to do that another time.

Still no idea what to call him, though the kids offered up some suggestions.

Remember I said that the first hugs were of the “bishop hugging the RS president” sort? Polite, respectful, sideways hugs, the kind that are culturally kosher [so to speak] for people who are married, but not to each other. Got a very nice but still entirely appropriate bear-hug at the end of the evening.

Still grinning.

And the dolls got along well, too. Mel got lots of pictures of my two little ones sitting with or climbing on the two big ones they brought. Even Chutzpah behaved herself.

I did get the second sleeve done after lunch but before my nap. And I am now in the midst of joining all the bits together. I discovered when getting ready to attach the second sleeve, that I had reversed it when inserting it between the front and the back. That took some finagling to fix, as these needles are so small that you can’t get them in circular format. So at the moment I am juggling all five minuscule DP’s. It is awkward and fiddly, but not so much as to inspire childbirth words.

@Michele, welcome to the madness which is my world. [How on earth did you stumble upon me?] I will be happy to cobble together a reasonably coherent list of resources for you, but I will need at least one more nap before I can make it happen.

OK, y’all, time for me to refuel. I truly miss those days when I could easily fast; there is nothing like a dedicated fast to bring the Spirit near. So for me, this will not be Fast and Testimony Sunday. It will just be the savoring of others’ testimonies, and a day of grateful reflection upon my blessings. Thankfully, I am still quite capable of making a donation to the fast offering fund, which blesses the poor and the needy. I have certainly been both, more than once.

Whether I make it to the break-the-fast potluck for the singles in my stake tonight, remains to be seen. I have never been disappointed when I went, nor in the fireside (inspirational talk) which followed. But generally, by the time I am done with 2.5 hours of meetings, including choir practice, and the regular three-hour block of meetings, I am ready to be horizontal and unconscious as quickly and safely as humanly possible (i.e., preferably not behind the wheel on the way home).

And it’s been a week that rather was rather more complicated than usual.

In Which No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

When I find the Chinese person who cursed me yesterday, I will make him/her sit in the corner with extremely slippery yarn and knit something complicated, using [broken] chopsticks.

I spent an hour and a half at jury duty yesterday morning, only to be assigned a courtroom for Monday. Came home and changed my clothing (I parked in the garage next to the courtroom, on the third level, and there was no elevator, and this is summertime in Texas.) Dithered for a few minutes while continuing to rehydrate and cool down, then decided to drive on into work and see how much I could get done, since I will be in District Court on Monday. Thankfully, not a criminal case.

So I was typing along, earning brownie points with my lawyers and feeling pretty good about the day, when some lackwit thought it would be a good idea to call in a bomb threat.

We evacuated the building and spent the first 20 minutes or so standing on our appointed emergency street corner, watching the police direct traffic away from the front of our building, just in case.

If it made the Dallas Channel 4 news last night, that lovely historical edifice would be ours; I know that this made the blog on the alternative newspaper. I think we were all sitting inside the McDonalds by the time the camera crew showed up. Which saved you all from hearing me worry aloud, not so much about how I was getting home, but how I was getting to the wedding reception in a southern suburb of Fort Worth later (I didn’t), or to BittyBubba’s birthday party this morning, or to my date tonight.

I do not do “stuck” well. I spent the last half of my marriage feeling stuck on a regular basis, and it is by the grace of Heaven that I did not have a full-on PTSD episode last night. Or asthma, or my left ankle puffing up like a blowfish, or a major outbreak of rudeness on my part.

Once they let us retrieve our cars, I ran the late mail to the big post office, since some of us stayed after the office was officially closed, and it was on the way home. And then I headed down to Vicki’s yarn shop to soak up some wool fumes. I knew I would not be fit company at a wedding reception, no matter how delighted I am for the groom and his lady.

When I hit Duncanville and spotted the Taco Cabana, I suddenly knew what I wanted for dinner: basic beef Cabana Bowl. Except that since I ate there last, they have “improved” their menu. And the girl at the drive-thru could not understand me, and she kept asking me to make decisions about my dinner, when all I wanted was what I had last week. After about a minute, I finally said “never mind” as politely as possible and exited the line.

I knew that if I had stayed there much longer, I would have lost my temper, or started crying, and it was not her fault that we had had a bomb threat, just as it was not my fault that I was momentarily incapable of making a decision. There was a Wendy’s on down the block. I got a side Caesar, a baked potato, and a bowl of chili. Comfort food, all of it, and relatively tasty, and by the time I was done eating it (in the yarn shop) I was feeling reasonably lucid.

This is going to be a busy day. I am heading out to the gym in a few. I will pick up Brother Sushi around 9:00, and he will help me deal with something unpleasant. I hope to be done with that quickly and on to BittyBubba’s party at 10:00 (but I am not holding my breath, because it involves other people’s agency, procedures, and agendas), so that I can come home and take a nap and get ready for a one-hour trek across Dallas in a car without A/C for date #3.

Thankfully, mercifully, I am not conducting RS tomorrow.

I have my playlist and CD’s for tonight’s line dancing lesson. I know where my ballet slippers are. I know which dolls I am taking. (Mel is bringing some of hers.) I may even get the second sleeve done on Chutzpah’s sweater this morning so I can put it in place and proceed to design the neckline and whether it will open in front or in back.

I am so glad the date was not last night, because I was just a big bundle of needs for awhile. Tonight I can go, enjoy myself, and be good company.

Why I was eating trees and cheese at 6:30a.m.

I opened the freezer to bring out a loaf of bread. The package with the individual servings of trees and cheese fell out onto the floor (it was looking a little depressed). Three of the four containers were undamaged. The fourth flipped its lid, not so much as you’d notice, and disgorged a tablespoon of frozen broccoli onto my kitchen floor. That part went into the compost pile when I walked outside to put my gym bag in the trunk and haul the trash bin and recycling bin back to the side of the house. The rest of it went into the microwave.

Because, apparently, I had a craving for trees and cheese that was unsuspected when I woke up yesterday.

It’s too bad that you aren’t supposed to even refrigerate Nutella; otherwise I would prime the pump, or salt the mine, or some other metaphor, and stand by the fridge waiting for it to leap out.

No such luck.

But the good thing about my broccoli is, when a tablespoon of it disappears itself, the proportion of cheese to trees improves considerably.

I tried the fast setting on my bobbin for effort #2, as opposed to the half-fast setting I used before. It’s much easier to draft at this speed, and the strand appears to be more uniform. Not to mention it goes a whole lot faster. I am wondering if I can get fingering weight when I ply this.

I spent some time rearranging my photo albums on Facebook last night. It kept me from posting Three Days to German Chocolate Cheesecake as my status.

Food note: the Healthy Request Maryland-Style Crab Soup is tasty. It doesn’t taste particularly crabbish, but it’s pleasantly spicy, and there are verifiable chunks of potato in it, always a plus as far as I am concerned.

Today is my Friday. Tomorrow I get to play hurry up and wait in the jury pool. I have borrowed Secondborn’s copy of Breaking Dawn as an alternative to knitting. I don’t think the bailiff would like my 5-aught knitting needles. And I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t let me bring my spinning wheel. So, vampire-flavored doorstop, it is.

I am hoping that they will keep me in the jury pool long enough that it is worth nobody’s while for me to drive in to work for what’s left of the day.

And afflicting the comfortable.

I used to gauge my effectiveness as a parent, when I had a houseful of teenagers, by how many of them were not happy with me. Wearing the Mom Hat just about guaranteed that at any given time, somebody was thinking that I could kiss next year’s M-Day present goodbye. And anything else that might be in the neighborhood.

Looking back, this is probably when I developed my working philosophy of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

One of my precious children has been Behaving Badly. I don’t mean that she is robbing banks or stealing candy from babies; more like a virulent outbreak of It’s All About Me Fever. I took exception to it. I also threw not merely a spanner into the works, but a Phillips screwdriver, a spirit level, and a carpenter’s square. You may safely assume that said child is taking my name in vain at the moment. You may also safely assume that I am taking that in stride.

I keep hearing Emily Gilmore’s voice in my head: “I don’t care if you think I’m the Wh_re of Babylon.” [It is more than a little weird to be channeling Emily, rather than Rory or Lorelai.]

When the going gets tough, the tough get spinning (though this is not what inspired last Thursday’s retrieval of my spinning wheel from the back of my studio). Witness:



And to prove that there are colors other than teal, chez Ravelled, here is my recent yarn trade:



I had a small accident while plying the handspun. Since the last skein I plied, oh say 20 years ago, I had forgotten that when one is plying from both ends of a cake of singles, it is wise to hold the cake in one hand and do the plying with the other. Which meant that at some point a blob of overtwisted singles leapt out of the center of the cake [nowhere near as fun as if it had been Sean Connery, though every bit as panic-inducing] to be greeted by another AWOL overtwisted blob leaping from the outside of the cake, forming the living image of rush hour traffic westbound on I-30 through Arlington when a Rangers game has just let out.

So. Not. Pretty. It probably took me half an hour to 45 minutes to untangle the mess, and it involved breaking both strands of my precious handspun and teasing out the tangles on first one strand, then the other, until I was able to rejoin them to the ball.

I have a whole new appreciation for Lehi's vision of the olive tree as expounded in the 5th chapter of Jacob. All of that grafting of the natural branches into the wild trees, and the wild branches into the tame trees, and then the grafting back of the wild branches into the wild trees and the tame branches into the tame trees, and the burning of the useless branches at the end of it all.

The Wh_re of Babylon bids you a gracious good morning and is heading off to work now.

P.S. Speaking of cake, the new guy informs me that he has solved the dilemma of what to make for dessert on Saturday night: German Chocolate Cake? or cheesecake? He has found a recipe for German Chocolate Cheesecake. “Everybody dies happy.”

Yarn Swap

A woman contacted me over on Ravelry, asking if I had a spare skein of the teal KnitPicks Gloss Lace. She would be happy to buy it. I asked if she had the same yarn in a different color. I love this yarn to bits, and I am a bit tealed-out at the moment. She did: the silvery grey. So I mailed her the teal, and she mailed me the grey, and we are both happy campers, only out the cost of mailing flat rate boxes to one another. I was simply not in the mood to deal with PayPal this time around.

This grey is exactly the color I hoped it would be, when I first saw it in the catalogue. There is just the merest suggestion of lavender to it, which means that it will go wonderfully with the necktie skirt I thought I was making for Jessica or Blessing, but which fits Celeste. And it will also go with Faith’s hooves and fetlocks, which are plummy charcoal and warm lilac, respectively. (Hey, you paint your fantasy creatures the colors you want them, and I’ll have Fourthborn paint mine the colors I want them.)

Firstborn and Kristen, thank you for your lovely comments recently. No, I wasn't familiar with that poem, or if I’d read it, it was so long ago that I had forgotten it entirely. But yeah, I do know how that feels.

For those of you who are spinners, I have just fired up a spinning-related blog. Don’t expect a lot of activity there for awhile. It’s all the Yarn Harlot’s fault, what with her Tour de Fleece activity. I told her so, too.

Three days until jury duty. Four days until dinner with the new guy.

The Door Prize Scarf

I finally got it blocked yesterday. The pattern is Lace Ladder and Twist, from Barbara Walker’s A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, Vol. 1.



Yarn is KnitPicks Gloss Lace in Aegean. Blocked size is 14” wide by 66” long. One of the girls in my graduating class was six feet tall. I wanted to make sure this was long enough for her, should she win it as a door prize.



I will bundle this up and get it in the mail to the reunion committee later this week.

Started a small doll project yesterday. The sweater for Chutzpah needs more time and peace and quiet for designing the next phase, than I have had when I would normally knit in public. So I am noodling around with the leftover Schaefer Anne from my Swallowtail Shawl. I think there is enough for a simple vest for Faith.

Had a blast at Firstborn’s birthday party last night. I just love all those characters from 1BDH’s side of the family!

N.V.G.T.

Not. Very. Good. Tacos.

My Bueno let me down. Yesterday we had the ward Pioneer Day breakfast at a local park. The food was cooked by people who love to eat; i.e., it was excellent. There were brief inspirational talks, and some games for the younguns and anyone else who wanted to participate. I took my spinning wheel along, hoping that a dash of verisimilitude would exempt me from the games.

It worked.

We had that whole section of the park all morning. I set up camp on the edge of a meandering sidewalk, in the shade of several trees. And there I sat, and spun, and ’splained, Lucy. Once the games got going, so did I. Put the wheel into the back seat and headed over to the health club. It did not seem particularly bright to me, to go work out and shower in order to go to the breakfast, where I would only get sweaty again. I like a good hot shower as much as the next person, and there have been days when I would have been content to walk into the shower and not walk out again until bedtime, but yesterday was not one of those days.

@ Tola, my ever-mischievous friend: that would be a “no.” I don’t think “DollyDaddy” is going to cut it, especially since in the doll world he would be the “DollyDaddy’s Daddy,” which is altogether too much like “Baby Mama Drama,” and we have that going already with Lark’s mom.

But thanks for playing!

I have the standard bobbins on my Louet S-10 wheel. If I remember correctly, when I had my first wheel, also an S-10, it came with three bobbins that spun at one speed only, and one higher-speed bobbin, which I don’t think I ever used. This one has a bobbin with three gear ratios on the business end: 5.5 to 1, which is designed for fat yarns but what I am using, because I am relearning technique, and it is far easier at a slow speed, plus this pencil roving is less than half the diameter of the pencil roving I used twenty-five years ago; 7.5 to 1, designed for medium-weight yarns, and 10.5 to 1.

There are also two high-speed bobbin options now available, with ratios of 6.5:1, 9.5:1 and 15:1. One has a bobbin core the same diameter as the basic bobbin, roughly an inch; the other has a fatcore bobbin, to simulate a half-full bobbin so that there is less pull on the fiber as you draft the yarn.

I plan to spin enough yarn at this setting (one or two bobbins full) to make a small project. And then I am going to try the fastest setting, to see if I can get a decent sock yarn from this pencil roving. At which point I might be ready to take the glorious bump of Micki’s hand-dyed wool and turn it into sock yarn. Spinning from pencil roving is blissfully lazy spinning, but it is a good way to regain my skills.

Maybe everybody in my tribe will get small handspun Christmas ornaments this year. Or, maybe not.

There is enough VM (vegetable matter) in this wool that at times I feel as if I were the Lone Star division of Noro. (Knitting joke: Noro Kureyon Sock is 70% wool, 30% nylon, and 5% vegetable matter.)

The Lendrum wheel, which is what I want next, has three flyer options (the part that sits on top of the drive wheel and contains the bobbin), with drive ratios ranging from 5:1 to 44:1. If all goes well, that may be my Christmas present to myself after I am out of debt next year. I think I remember that my friend Jeri has the fast flyer and is not enamored of it; the regular one works perfectly well for her, and she suggested that I borrow her fast flyer to see if I like it, before investing in one myself. The Lendrum wheel has a single-treadle or double-treadle option; I would choose the double-treadle, because that would keep the lymph flowing sweetly in both ankles. Too bad I can’t get a prescription for it and run it through my medical reimbursement account!

In spinning once more, I feel as if I had found a piece of myself that has been dormant for too long.

Eat. Pray. Love.

No, not the movie, which I probably will see, depending on the rating and the reviews. I remember that I enjoyed reading the book last year.

Not-so-much eating has been going on here. I’ve lost 18 pounds since the first of the year, without dieting. I eat what I want, when I want it, just a little less of it, and more fruits and veggies, plus there is all that lovely splooshing at the pool.

I’m still not swimming, just walking and/or trotting back and forth in the water, generally about half a mile a day. I love the recumbent bike, which gives me a bit more of a workout, and I am pleased to report that I now walk the treadmill (when I do walk the treadmill) without holding onto the side rails, at a steeper slope and a faster speed, if for less time than I was at first, most of the days that I get that far (i.e., if time permits).

I still do not like peeling out of sweaty clothes to get into my swimsuit, though it feels so good when I step down into that water. I am marginally amused by how difficult it is to pull a swimsuit up over a sweaty body. It hangs up at various rest stops along the way, shall we say, and while I love the cherry-red color and the drape of the bodice, I miss the shoulder straps on my old suit that I loved to death. This one ties at the back of the neck. I feel all Dorothy Lamour in it, but it’s not the best-fitting suit I’ve ever owned.

The big news is still my upcoming dinner with the new guy [and his kids the Doll Folk]. She is bringing dolls. I will take some of mine. I will also be giving the new guy line-dancing lessons, and if the kids poke too much fun, we will make them get up and dance as well. Thankfully, he loves C/W music, so he will have stuff we can dance to.

He gets major props from me for his comportment at last weekend’s dance. He does not know how to line-dance, but he got up and tried, and he smiled throughout. So yeah, still impressed with what I see and know of him, and still no idea what to call him.

I attended the singles’ temple night on Wednesday. He was there. We sat together in the chapel beforehand and whispered quietly in the celestial room afterward. I got a little weepy, praying for my kids, some of whom have made or are making choices that distress me. So we’ve gotten over the hurdle of him seeing me cry now; and he did not walk away as fast as his legs would take him, just sat there quietly in the chair next to me until I was done, then leaned over and whispered how hard it had been for him to go back to the temple after his wife passed away.

Good man.

While I was not-blogging, I managed to acquire my first speeding ticket in over 30 years thanks to completely missing *two* clearly posted signs on the eastbound service road for I-30 in Grand Prairie. Here’s the first one, right at the entrance to the freeway.



And here’s the second one, about halfway between there and where I was pulled over.



But the cop was easy on the eyes and just about ma’amed me to death. It will be ramen noodles and/or PBJ’s chez Ravelled until my budget has recovered.

Though there has been a wee bit of shopping. I found this on my way to the temple on Wednesday night. A small box from India, painted in the Shekhawati style and featured at World Market, which has a huge Eat Pray Love theme going on right now. I wandered in, hoping to find a doll-sized decorative chair that might do for one of the resin kids. Instead, I found this footstool for the big girls / hassock for the little ones. [I also rediscovered my tiny terracotta pot that begs to be filled with a miniature ficus or geraniums or something.]



I have been puttering a little. All four light bulbs in the ceiling fan in the living room had burned out. I got up on my stepstool to see if maybe they were just loose; they were not. (I had been lucky in la boudoir; I only needed to stand up on the bed and tighten them gently.)

Two of the bulbs had unscrewed themselves from their brass bases, leaving said bases in the sockets. So I turned off the ceiling fan, and believe me that was no small sacrifice given how warm it is outside and in. I was able to get one of them out easily. The other one was as resistant as a two-year-old at bedtime.

I used my round-nosed pliers (the ones that have been AWOL since I moved, which necessitated the purchase of a second pair; I also found the two AWOL rechargeable batteries for my camera, all of them in my toolbox, go figure!) to crimp one edge so I could get a purchase on it, and out it came. My living room is now all lit up like Vegas.



Last night, after an unsuccessful attempt to write a difficult letter, I hauled my spinning wheel out of the studio and set it up here in the living room. I am spinning from a cheese of pencil roving which my friend Rebecca gave me some time back. Here’s what we have so far:



There are bits of straw and other vegetable matter in it. And I’m spinning it as it comes off the cheese, without drafting it any further. So I have no idea how fat the plied yarn will be, but I think I may try my hand at Navajo-plying.

I just wish it were possible to run my tightly-spun traps and neck through the orifice of my wheel and reverse some of the tension. I am wound tighter than a tick. Not only was I weepy at the temple on Wednesday night, when I drove home from work last night I was channel-surfing because I was so very, very tired.

On the new guy’s favorite country station, they played Alan Jackson’s “Small Town Southern Man,” which reminds me so much of Dad, who was a Colorado farm boy but of the same high caliber as the dad in the song. That started the waterworks again. He’s been gone 20 years, and last Friday would have been his 105th birthday. And I thought, “I haven’t cried this hard because of a song since the first time I heard ‘That Summer’.” [Which I heard when I had gone away to Galveston for my birthday weekend ten years ago, for some crying time because of the then-current family drama, during which I had spent a couple of weeks being Seriously Supportive.] Guess what they played next?

Half an hour later, I was perfectly fine again. It was just one of those summer cloudbursts that washes everything clean (and makes the flowers happy).

There have been moments in the past month when I really wished that I were married, so I could go to my spousal unit and say, “Hold me. Please, just hold me. I don’t need you to fix anything, I’m not sure its fixable, I just want to be held.”

Today, thankfully, is not one of those days. But then I have been careful to avoid the radio. And I got a nice, long nap after the well-woman stuff.

@ Francis: Had lunch at Fuzzy’s with my best friend today. Seriously oversalted.

Found a new home for the new jacket

My best-friend-at-work confirmed my opinion and that of Secondborn: great fabric, interesting jacket, and not me. So I showed it to another friend at work who is about my size, and it not only fits her perfectly, it also suits her.

Got a lot accomplished yesterday, including, apparently, mislaying the hanger with my yoga pants and my least-favorite T-shirt. Not in the house, not in the car, not in the trunk, not in the lost and found at the health club.

So that means I am limited to the pool only until I buy a new pair of yoga pants. Thankfully, I love the pool.

Support staff meeting this morning. Devoutly praying that it is a short one, as I have much in my inbox and on my to-do list. Oye. There may be some serious chocolate abuse today.

The headlight of an oncoming train...

Well, now I know why I woke up at 11:30 Sunday night, after having gone to bed with the chickens. I was sitting here, typing away, and there was a funny noise outside and the power went out. At least I wasn’t sleeping and therefore startled awake by the CPAP going off abruptly. Thank goodness for cell phones: I reset my alarm.

Correction: I reset the time on the clock. I reset the time for the alarm. But I forgot to push the button. Consequently, I woke at 6:14, washed up quickly, threw on something, and scooted out the door. I made it to the train station in time to park in the shade, all the way in the back, and have a leisurely stroll down the steps and up to the train.

LadyZen was on the train, woohoo! I had not seen her in at least a month. So good to catch up on one another’s lives.

I have joked for years about the light at the end of the tunnel, not always being the headlight of an oncoming train. Yesterday it was. Only there was no tunnel, just the back end of the southbound train obscuring the front end of a northbound train as I was crossing the tracks. My friend C says I scared two years out of her. I was just thankful that I’ve been working out for two and a half months, because my acceleration was pretty impressive, those last five feet!

Thankfully, I am not the sort who freezes in times of danger. I just kept moving forward. Sometimes inertia is on the side of the good guys. (I hope I’m one of the good guys, even though I’m not exactly a guy.) I may not have made it to the gym before work, but I definitely had an aerobic workout!

The rest of the day, thankfully, was considerably less scary. Lots of typing, a new case opened for one of the other attorneys whose secretary (and backup secretary, ahem) are both out of the office this week. I don’t have enough experience to be able to handle her entire docket, but I do know enough to be useful. And a new case opened for us, which is good, because we closed a long-time problem child.

Yes, I will be more watchful while crossing the tracks today. Instead of looking both ways, I’ll look both ways twice.

In other good news, I made significant progress on my swatching for the next doll sweater. I am working on the 5-aught needles at the moment, basically pushing gauge for all it’s worth until I get a fabric that is no longer fluid. The stockinette at this gauge is really impressive: I am guessing 12-13 sts per inch, and probably 20 rows if I had enough patience to work that many, though I haven’t confirmed it with my stitch gauge.

Itty-bitty, tee-ninetsy stitches, each identical to its neighbor, with just enough wiggle to them to confirm that yes, this was not made by machine. I am currently working a pattern of broken ribbing, like I used for 2BDH’s scarf Christmas before last, only this time it’s two stitches wide and three rows long. Looks really good on the 4-aughts but somewhat tightly-wound on the 5-aughts. Next I want to try a pattern of alternating diamonds in stockinette and reverse stockinette, three stitches wide tapering down to one, and five rows long.

But first I am going to the health club, because it has now been three days, and I had cranky dreams. (LittleBit was a baby, and I was not being patient with her because I wanted to go shopping, and she was not being cooperative. There is probably a metaphor in there, and it is probably not one that makes me look like Saint Ravelled.)

When I looked at my desk calendar yesterday, I realized that on the 30th, when I have jury duty, the secretary *I* back up [!!!] will be out on vacation. So I emailed the office manager, and she sent a tactful heads-up to that attorney. Maybe today I will have a few extra seconds to look at his calendar for that day, to see what reports, if any, will be due.

Fourthborn is having fun in Virginia with Middlest. I’m glad that somebody in the family will be with her for her birthday tomorrow.

Time to grab the gym bag and take care of this middle-aged body. I want a little time on the recumbent bike as well as in the water, but mostly I want to be in the water.

Secondborn, LittleBit comes by the not-changing-the-oil gene quite honestly. You do not want to know how long it’s been since Lorelai had hers changed. When I have the time, I do not have the money. When I have the money, I do not have the time. Heaven is being merciful and extending the life of that engine only because I am stretched six ways from Sunday. (And because I am not spending what I laughingly call my disposable income, on tattoos.) However, on Saturday morning time and cash will converge, and I will take care of that small detail.

The oil change. Not a tattoo.

I am heading out the door now. I promise to slow down a little, and to look both ways. I like it here with y’all.

Delete. Delete. Delete.

Yesterday I spent about an hour wading through my Yahoo! inbox. Reduced its contents from nearly 300 emails to 33. At the moment, after reading and responding to others, we are down to 30. [That would be the royal we.]

The visiting teaching conference went well yesterday. Everybody liked the breakfast casseroles (think funeral potatoes minus the sour cream plus sausage). We had more people in attendance than I thought, and nowhere near as many as there could have been, even with the bribe of food.

Visiting teaching is the heart of Relief Society. We go out two by two, like the ark, and we try to take care of one another. And when it works, it is glorious. It works, more often than not, because it is an inspired program. And we come to this earth pre-programmed for happiness as we serve one another. We are not so good about the reporting back. Visiting teaching is not about the statistics. But when we don’t go out and love those sisters, they fall away, or they don’t reactivate, and they struggle and suffer alone and think that God has forgotten them.

And on a purely bureaucratic note, because at heart I still think of myself as more of a bean counter than a shepherdess [but I’m trying], one of those quarterly reports that goes to the stake and on to church headquarters, is a large factor in determining the budget for a ward Relief Society the following year.

So, if we don’t go out, people suffer. And if we don’t report back, even if we have gone out, the budget suffers and we can’t provide as many activities for the sisters the following year.

OK, in the good-news department. Secondborn was called to be first counselor in her ward Relief Society. And she is speaking in sacrament meeting today. I will be sitting in the congregation with 2BDH and the Bitties, listening and sniffling.

More good news: Fourthborn is visiting Middlest in Virginia. I sent along some cannibalized T-shirts with her, to make doll clothes.

I have no idea if this is good news, or not. I have been summoned for jury duty later this month. I have yet to sit on a jury. Generally, when they find out that I work for an insurance company, I get struck for cause. They are going to be thrilled when I tell them at work: we are already down two legal secretaries. I just hope it is not something like the O.J. trial, where my grandchildren will all graduate high school before I get to see them again. I am supposed to dine at the new guy’s house the following evening (his son and daughter-in-law will also be there).

Time for me to start fluffing and foofing. I also need to remember to leave the baaah-ing part of my keychain locked in my trunk, so the Bitties will not ask to play with it at sacrament meeting. I also need to remember to take Chutzpah out of my purse.

Secondborn, I will drag the questionable jacket with me to church today, and you can give me your vote. Maybe I will have you take a picture of me in it and email that to Firstborn, or maybe I will swing by after Knit Night on Tuesday and let her take a squint. I am retrieving the title to Phineas that night, preparatory to taking delivery of the actual car so I can sell it for junk in the next couple of weeks.

Assuming I am not sequestered in a hotel room with 11 other jurors but without my CPAP.

Friday? Already?

I have been driving in all week, the better to enjoy a more leisurely workout in the morning. Also because we have had several people on vacation this week, and I can park for free under the building, using their monthly parking.

I did it all yesterday, all before breakfast: recumbent bicycle, treadmill, weight circuit, and pool. And I had a terrific day as a result. I got home from the temple just about 10:00p.m., and while I was sleepy, I was not loopy.

Though it was close. My package of deeply discounted delights from Coldwater Creek’s online outlet was waiting for me on the porch. [Oh, how I love honest neighbors!] And I was so sleepy that I brought it inside, plunked it down on the arm of the couch, and slid into my jammies, utterly incurious.

I don’t know how I feel about the jacket. It is sewn from a cleverly constructed oversized houndstooth fabric; some of the yarns are matte, some are shiny, some are textured, and some are plain. Variations on cream and black. I’m not sure whether the collar is meant to stand up or lie flat. It doesn’t seem to want to do either. And, standing up, it is just the right shape [or, more accurately, the wrong shape] to irritate the skin at the sides of my neck. And it’s a funny shape: not exactly a kimono, not exactly a swing jacket, but oversized like the fabric it is made from, and the sleeves are 3/4 length, and I think it makes me look as if I had not lost nearly 20 lbs, or maybe my arms had a growth spurt, and those buttons?

Those buttons are ugly. Seriously ugly. The jacket is fully-lined and sewn with their usual craftsmanship, but I wonder if there is an Ugly Button University somewhere in the universe, because oye!

If I end up keeping it, I will be taking a little excursion to Benno’s Buttons.

I am ordinarily quite confident in picking out my own clothing. But I am going to have to run this particular item past Firstborn, Secondborn, and Fourthborn to play Is It the Jacket, Or Is It Me?

I haven’t tried on the shirts yet. I anticipate no drama there. In color, they are all variations on the theme of autumn.

My to-do’s at work multiplied like lemmings while my back was turned yesterday. The goal for today is to give the vast majority of them a decent burial at sea.

Ordinarily, this would be my Friday for dinner with Brother Sushi. But he got shanghaied into something for the singles, and I am about ready to just come home, kick my shoes off, and opt for an early bedtime. I want to take him to that really cool restaurant where I ate with Trainman last month. I also want to not fall asleep with my face in my appetizer. So we are thinking that next Saturday night, between my stint at the temple in the morning, and the dance in Richardson that night, would be a better time.

Today I just want to splash in the pool a little, come home, throw on one of the new shirts and a silk scarf over jeans, and catch the train. We’ll see how that goes...

Had a great Fourth.

I stayed awake for [most of] my meetings. I did doze off in Gospel Doctrine, but I made sure to tell the teacher afterward that I had enjoyed class, and that my drowsiness was not an editorial comment.

Came home and had a bit of solitude and a bite of dinner before heading back to the chapel. I got there just as everybody else was finishing dinner, and I had no trouble staying awake during Bishop’s talk at the fireside.

Drove to the parking lot near my house and was just getting comfy when my phone went off: Secondborn is the new 1st counselor in the RS presidency in her ward! The new RS president has been serving in the stake RS presidency, [and I suspect she has been a RS president before]. Secondborn will learn so much in this calling, and she will bring much to it, and she will learn to love the sisters in her ward more deeply than she can now imagine.

So I watched the fireworks at the Colonial first, while Secondborn talked to me, and then the ones at Trinity Park started, and the ones at Colonial finished in a blaze of glory, and we had several more minutes before the ones at Trinity Park were done. I have no idea why fireworks should move me to tears, but they do.

My friend M’s socks are done. I can start swatching for sweaters for Faith and Chutzpah. I pulled out a remnant of darkish green laceweight wool that I think will do very nicely for Chutzpah. I will have to look at my laceweight and see what would look good on Faith, my little unicorn-human hybrid.

I need to email Middlest and ask her if I gave her the last of the aqua silk/wool laceweight, or if it’s buried in my stash somewhere. I am trying to be really good and knit only from my stash. As Ringo sang, “It don’t come easy, you know it don’t come easy...”

I slept in until about 7:00 this morning and am about ready to grab the gym bag and go play at the health club for awhile. I wonder if people will be sleeping in this morning, or if it’s going to be a madhouse?

A few weeks ago I went twice in one day (I was trying to resist the call of some ridiculously fattening food, and it worked.) The pool, and more particularly the hot tub, were filled with twenty-somethings, and they were all TALKING LIKE THIS.

At 4:30am, the pool has a sprinkling of people my age, and we nod to one another, and we murmur respectfully to one another, and we focus on the task at hand.

I made the decision, years ago, not to be crabby in the morning. I am not a lark by nature; I am a night owl who has functioned as a lark for nearly three decades (since Firstborn started kindergarten).

When the girls started hitting seminary age, I learned that I needed to get up an hour before everybody else, have my devotional and finish waking up, before I had to start dealing with groggy teenagers.

I caught a bit of a break when it was just LittleBit and me, because I only had to open her door and say, “Good morning, Beautiful!”, and her eyes would fly open, and she would smile at me and chirp, “Good morning, Mommy!” (even when she was 18). And then she would get up and get herself ready.

I cherish those memories, now that she is going through her rebellious period. Which I think is going to last awhile. I keep her name on the prayer roll pretty much constantly, and it just occurred to me that this might have been like (3rd) Nephi felt: do I pray for famine, or do I let the natural consequences of war bring her around?

I just send up a prayer, every so often, that she will have experiences where she feels God's love and where she is drawn back to Him, but mostly I pray for her safety. As I pray for her sisters and their families.

I think when I get home from the health club, that I am going to spend some time reorganizing the kitchen and my food storage. I have one last cheapie bookshelf out in the living room, that is more rhomboid every day. I think I will take it apart and add four shelves to the stack by the fridge (#10 cans are the spacers), so I will have room to stack my pots and pans.

This kitchen was designed for quick refueling, back when a good cook had three pots and a frying pan and a rolling pan. It does not inspire a cookfest, and I haven’t truly felt like cooking in months, and there is minimal storage.

I have my good dishes (bought on sale at Target, a dozen for $10) and all the cool stuff I bought to augment them (chargers, handblown goblets from Pier One, earthenware from Garden Ridge), plus the everyday dishes, plus remnants of other sets that I’ve collected over the years (the things that Fourthborn didn’t accidentally[?] break when it was her turn to do dishes; she’s a lovely human being now, but when she was a teenager, she raised passive-aggression to an art form!) and Corningware bowls for microwaving and and and...

Five kids + actual or eventual spouses + me + eventual eternal companion = service for 12 at a minimum. And, two apartments ago, when I had 22 kitchen cabinets[!] and six drawers, plus a linen closet in the hall and a well-designed dining room, I liked to have small dinner parties once a month.

I have done that *once* since I moved in here. We had three sitting on the couch, one in the rocker, one in a wooden folding chair, and me in my rolling chair, all clustered around the coffee table, because there is literally no room to open up my gate-leg table.

But I do love living here, because I am gradually going through my stuff, discovering what I no longer need, and giving it to people who truly need or want it. Last year before Halloween, I took a couple of bags of decorations to Relief Society and plunked them on the chairs where we’re supposed to sit at the beginning of the meeting and told the sisters to have at it, after class. Everything found a home. I think I’m about ready to do that with my candlestick collection.

Well, my computer says it’s pushing 9:00, and I need to get moving. The light through the “eyebrow” window at the top of my front door is glorious. I think I will pop open a carton of yogurt and then hit the road.

Hi, remember me?

It’s been that kind of a week. This was the first full week with our office down two legal secretaries (one on maternity leave, one who gave notice). Thankfully, there was only *one* staff meeting which involved the entire office, and it was mercifully brief: less than an hour.

This post is going to be mostly a pastiche of excerpts from my emails to the new guy (still no moniker for him), as that is where 95% of my online energy has gone this week.

Still in work news: Thursday was golden. My attorney came by my desk and asked if I had plans for lunch. I had brought leftovers. He took me to lunch at Cindy’s, which is a home-cooking restaurant by Union Station that is a pleasant walk from the office and does not disgrace the name of home-cooking. One of the other attorneys, the one I would pick for my half-docket if I were given the choice, joined us. We are all about the same age, so it was not two attorneys and a secretary having lunch, it was three lively, smart middle-aged people eating good food and talking about life. We were celebrating my attorney’s 4 year anniversary with the company.

He also did my mid-year performance review that day, called me into his office and showed me the rough draft, we discussed it, he made a couple of minor changes and gave me a second rough to read. I found a minute error which amused both of us, he fixed that, gave me a final copy, and sent it to the office manager and managing attorney. According to him, I don’t quite walk on water as a legal secretary, but he has faith that I’ll get that small detail figured out.

I love, love, love working with people who have clearly articulated high expectations and are generous but plausible with their feedback.

In health news: I revealed to the new guy that I use a CPAP. So do his mother and brother. So the whole “Luke, I am your mother” thing didn’t totally weird him out.

You’re already aware that I fell in love with John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Authority Song” earlier this week.

I figured out how to send the visiting teaching messages via Facebook.

I had ice cream with Fourthborn and Fiancé and LittleBit on Monday night, Pho95 (Vietnamese and very clean-tasting; I ate the last of it for lunch yesterday) on Wednesday night with Firstborn, and spent an hour or two at Secondborn’s yesterday. Also had a great conversation with Middlest on Friday night. Quality time with 100% of my kids and 60% of my grandkids, which makes me one happy camper.

He grows pomegranates. Which led to a lively discussion of Greek mythology as well as Greek yogurt, and which flavors of Yoplait were in our respective fridges.

We talked about which movie stars would be good to play which of our Book of Mormon heroes. He asked if I could see John Wayne playing Nephi.

I countered with this: “I’m thinking John Wayne or Sean Connery as Teancum, who is one of my favorite people in the Book of Mormon. If the Nephi we are talking about is the first one, ‘Brother Go and Do’, I’m thinking Gary Cooper or Gregory Peck, probably the latter. There’s a lot of Atticus Finch in Nephi, and vice versa. And maybe Anthony Hopkins as Mormon. And maybe Helen Mirren as Sariah.

“If they ever make a doll sculpt with sufficiently masculine facial features to resemble my idea of Teancum, I am doomed. I’m thinking that a quarter-inch dowel would make a pretty good shaft for his javelin, but I’d have to see the size of his hands to be sure. Thankfully, 99.9% of the male dolls look like teenage girls, at least from the neck up.”

He is planning Date #3; says he: “Have a plan in the works - will take a little time to get it all together - figure to invite you to my house for dinner, also invite [son and d-i-l] and then after dinner [he] and I can be spectators while you and [she] talk ‘dolls’. That way you won't be 100% alone with a single man, and I will have at least two people in my house that are interestingly weird.”

My response? “‘Interestingly weird?’ I can live with that, she says, grinning widely, though naturally I prefer ‘charmingly quirky.’ But I laughed all the way up from my toes, and I thank you for that.”

This is my month to conduct, and I am hoping to stay awake long enough to attend the break-the-fast and potluck which our ward is hosting and at which Bishop is speaking.

I have begun to take apart the red Franklin Covey binder which has been my companion for four years. It is exceedingly well-made, which is why it has lasted so long under hard use. I am hoping to salvage enough leather for doll projects of some sort. It would be cool to figure out how to make professional-quality shoes and/or boots, and replicate some of the ones I have seen online. [Did I mention that I found real toe shoes (ballet shoes for experienced dancers, for those of you who have never worn a tutu) in every color of the rainbow, and I think sized to fit multiple dolls, for just slightly more than I paid for my own black ballet slippers. That would be a fun treat for next year, especially if I made tutus to match. Degas paintings, recreated in resin, for photoshoots.]

Time to grab some breakfast, print off my agenda for conducting RS today, and start getting ready for church.