Friday. Huzzah!

All in all, a great week almost put to bed. If I have the kind of day at work that I’ve had recently, all of my to-do’s will get to-did (or to-done, if you’re not from Texas) and I will finish filing the rest of my emails, inbound and sent.

On Wednesday, that’s what I did all day. I whittled 90+ emails down to less than 20, with another 30 saved or deleted from my outbox. It’s a lot more complicated than you would think. If I get, say, an email from our court reporter with an e-tran and exhibits, each of those has to be saved (the e-tran three separate ways, including a zip file), as well as the email transmitting it all. On Wednesday I filed emails from three depositions, all of which had multiple exhibits. One of those depositions involved nine or ten emails and 16 exhibits, or something like 50+ individual steps.

Today I have one report to type for Attorney B, some dates to calendar on an item from Wednesday’s mail, and then I want to double-check myself on scheduling orders that I’ve calendared since we moved to the new system. I want to make sure that I have cross-noticed everybody. And so, about once a quarter, I do this, and I rarely find a slip-up.

I had my performance review on Wednesday, and it went far better than I’d expected, given the come-to-office-manager meeting a few days earlier. I was given two specific items to work on, both of which are eminently do-able.

And in the meantime, my desktop is looking far more like it used to. I like that.

We finally received credit for the one and only duplicate wedding gift. I hate sending things back. But this was something we really, truly needed only one of.

The temple was wonderful, as usual, and I came home flat wore-out. One of the brethren held the door open for me as I headed for my car and asked, “Going home?”

“Gee, I hope so!” And grinned wearily at him.

Beloved and I had talked about using one of our restaurant gift cards for dinner tonight, meeting there in two cars right after work to beat the crowds. But I ate too much salt yesterday, and my legs are still feeling a little inflamed, and the left ankle is puffy. Not a lot, but enough that I notice it. So I will come home, and we will cook dinner and crash early. Tomorrow we go to a little town between here and Oklahoma that has great antique shops and what is reputedly a good yarn store.

I have promised Beloved that no new furniture will come home with us until we have the house arranged the way we like it, with the stuff we already have. I told him I was making no such promise about yarn. We are doing a day trip with Mel and Squishy, and she says the yarn store is incredible, basically mill ends and close-outs, some junk yarn but mostly good stuff. I would like to get enough to knit pillow fronts for two of the inserts we got as wedding gifts, since the cabled ones at Pottery Barn that I put onto our registry, sold out early for Christmas. [Yes, they were red. You had to ask?] I put them on the registry more as inspiration than anything else, because I can design cooler cables and have the fun of knitting them up..

Second baby sock (to go into the gift drawer) is approaching completion. I will very likely finish it at church on Sunday, if not before.

Lorelai’s all fixed. I am having to wire a ginormous sum from my line of credit into my regular account and will also have them send enough to throw onto one of Beloved’s credit cards in preparation for paying it off. I remind myself that, dividing what I am going to give the mechanic by six (I have had Lorelai for six years this month) yields a sum that is far less painful. And if I had been able to maintain her the way I suspect that most folks maintain their cars, I would not have had to pay for all this at once. It would have been in smaller bites, spaced out over several years. But this should function as a facelift, tummy tuck, and liposuction. I am hoping that it gives her another five-plus years of useful life. And I am now in a position to do all the scheduled maintenance, because I live in a house with two incomes.

Boggles. The. Mind.

This paycheck got hit for retroactive premiums for Beloved’s health insurance, so it’s not exactly pretty. But the only bill I needed to pay was my cell phone, and we do not need a Costco run this time around. Just fresh fruits and veggies, eggs, and milk or milk substitutes. Which reminds me that I have half a gallon of dark chocolate almond milk in the outside fridge.

I got the button sewn on Beloved’s shorts, and the fleece liner reattached to the inside of the watch cap belonging to the good brother who drives him down for chemo every other Thursday. I moved another bookcase into my studio yesterday before breakfast. And now I am going to sluice off and wolf down a bowl of raisin bran and boogie on out the door.

I hope to have all sorts of adventures to share with you after our day trip tomorrow. Still no pictures, as I have yet to find my charger for the camera’s batteries.

Just checking in.

The past two mornings, I’ve leaped out of bed and headed straight for the studio to unpack boxes. Two big one before breakfast, yesterday, and a big one and little one today. Plus a whole bunch more with contents labeled for future reference. I am almost ready to move another bookcase in along that wall. The long bookcase/sofa table that I made with Brother Sushi’s help, will need to go out into the garage for Beloved’s workshop, unless it will fit between the IKEA armoire and the north wall. And I think that’s a just-won’t scenario.

Work has been mostly terrific this week. I am getting a lot done. On the other hand, when I got there yesterday I learned that one of the paralegals had been let go. It’s one of those situations where it’s none of my business, and more than a little unnerving, because to the best of my knowledge she is a woman of impeccable integrity. And one of my friends. So, I am sad both for her and for myself. I did talk it over with Beloved this morning, and I feel a little better, but still.

The second baby sock now has a neatly-turned heel. I did that at Knit Night last night. Between work and Knit Night, I picked up a button for Beloved’s camo shorts, and thread, and needles, and a purple silicone thimble, because while I know where my scissors are, the rest of the necessary supplies are in a box. In my studio. Somewhere. This will also enable me to do a quick mending job for a mutual friend. That will be tonight’s task.

Beloved has already taken off to pick up his mom for her doctors’ appointments. Time for me to fire up his red car and head to work. Lorelai is in the shop, having a whole raft of things done that most mortals are able to take care of as they crop up, but which my cash flow and/or mindset have not allowed. So she is getting a new catalytic converter (the O2 sensors are just fine), new tires, new timing belt, tune-up, new spark plugs et al, alignment, new tires, and three new motor mounts. And probably things I am not remembering at the moment, but which are typed into a Word document on my computer at work. She might be ready to pick up after work today. Or it might be tomorrow. In the meantime, I am making peace with an American car. And very grateful that we have a spare.

Notwithstanding how much I’m going to have to pull from my line of credit to pay for this, it is still cheaper than buying a new car, and I’m hoping it will extend her useful life another five years or so, which would be a record for me. Typically I kill a car every six years or so.

Gotta scoot. Carefully, because I’m not sure his car likes me. I have to fire her up (maybe it’s a him?) before I buckle in, otherwise the anti-theft device locks everything up. I get there. I get there, and I’m slow.

Insert brilliant title here. Or not

Much progress and Tetrising yesterday. That one hour nap I was planning? I woke up five hours later. But we did have leek and potato soup, and Beloved pronounced it true comfort food. There are five portions of it in the outside fridge (said fridge being out in the garage, not out in the back yard). We will eat well this week.

Watched an episode of Iron Chef last night. Duff from Ace of Cakes against Michael Somebody, who won. But the food was amazing, and somewhere last night, I think while eating dinner and watching Diners, Drive-ins & Dives (which I quite like) there was mention of lobster macaroni and cheese. I am now a woman on a mission.

After that, roughly about 10:30, Beloved was pooped and we had family prayer. He went to bed. I went back to my studio and played Tetris with the boxes until I was able to move two bookcases in there. I also moved half a dozen more boxes allegedly full of kitchen stuff out in that general direction. Beloved will deal with them as he has time and inclination, throughout the upcoming week.

I went to bed about 2:00 this morning. Yes, I am officially tired.

My eldest grandson (no longer BittyBubba) was ordained a deacon at church today. There is a small celebration at his house in about an hour and a half. In the meantime, I am torn between putting on my grubbies and shoving more boxes around, and playing on FB and the AARP website until then. Maybe I should do a little of both. I’ve done one read-through of the material for my sacrament talk next week. I also need to print off the material for my RS lesson next Sunday. The poor sisters will be getting a double-dip of me. You should pray for them.

We were supposed to home teach / visit teach the bishop and his family, but one of the family members is feeling under the weather, so we have rescheduled.

When I went out to Lorelai this morning to go to church, she made a very unhappy noise at me. I texted and called Beloved, who had gone to church early because of his clerk responsibilities, and he told me where to find the keys to his mother’s truck. I managed to get that started, but after church it didn’t want to go. I must not have been holding my mouth right, because it fired up just fine when Beloved tried.

Lorelai will be making a trip to the car doctor first thing in the morning. I will be a little late to work, and I will have to pull money from my line of credit to cover it, but we will also pay off (and close) a smallish-balance credit card while we are at it. The APR on my line of credit is significantly lower than what the credit card company is charging Beloved. We’ll have that all squared away in a few months, and then we will pay off his other credit card but not close it. As we will be buying his mother’s truck, we will not be entirely out of debt by the end of the year, but we should be reasonably close. His disability covers all the basic bills. We just need to sit down and work out a budget and figure out how much allowance to give ourselves each month.

The additional insurance premiums should start coming out this paycheck. I need to remember to switch over to the married withholding rate when I get to the office tomorrow. I love it that I am only having to pay $28 to Uncle Sugar for 2011; at least that’s how it stood when I saved my tax return a couple of weeks ago.

Naptime, I think, but I will set the alarm.

And better. Well, mostly.

Work, per se, went almost as smoothly on Thursday and Friday as it did before we moved to the two new programs. My desk looks like it did, back in those thrilling days of yesteryear. I completed all of my to-do’s and dealt with the mail (and most of the email) in a timely manner. I have two new suits to open next week, and two more for the week after that. The first two are in two neat piles, with everything I need to set up the paper file (such as it is) and mail off the bits that I will create when I open them. My attorney was out both days, and I got everything taken care of for Attorney B, and Attorney C (for whom I am backup every other Friday, as his secretary has a compressed work week) needed nothing from me, and I remembered to log off the postage meter at the end of the day (one of my adjunct duties when the person ordinarily in charge, is out of the office).

The temple on Thursday night was even better than usual. I was home a little after 10:00 and headed straight for the kitchen table for some cookies and milk and a thorough perusal of the latest Pottery Barn catalogue. The cat was so loving that had I not known he was a neutered male, I would have taken him for a lovelorn female.

Friday night I was double-booked and didn’t remember until the activity I attended with Beloved was over and we were heading on to dinner. *Facepalm*. I stood up Firstborn and probably Secondborn and my hair magician and who knows who else. I left Firstborn a voicemail and a text message. She still loves me. Whew!

Last week was, frankly, brutal and by the time 5:00 rolled around I was half past brain-dead. Which I am easing up on now.

Woke up at 4:30 this morning after about six(!) hours of sleep and headed straight for my studio. By the time we left for the hospital to get Beloved’s chemo pump removed, I had moved nine boxes of food and kitchen stuff to more appropriate locations, plus the small cooler (six-pack size); put one of my short metal filing cabinets in what I think will be its new place; had a (perfectly adequately balanced) stack of boxes play lemming and leap for the floor, showering two of my plastic drawer towers with the contents of my water glass but not breaking the glass itself; removed the contents of the drawers that got showered and spread them out to dry; and eaten a second breakfast when Beloved woke up.

Banking is done. We now have a joint account at his bank. Pump is off. We hit two grocery stores on the way home and made a lovely batch of soft tacos for lunch. Beloved is taking a one-hour nap. I am letting lunch settle a little more, then will do the same. My goal is to get all of the bookcases moved into my studio (and out of the dining room), even if they are not all filled by bedtime.

When I was driving home from work last night, I tilted my head to one side, and my range of motion was pain-free and significantly greater than a month ago. So I tilted it to the other side. Same result. It was a long light, so I felt my traps, just inside my collar. Not as relaxed as Beloved’s, but no longer resembling suspension cables for any major bridge you’d care to mention.

This marriage thing? I think it might be good for me!

OK, naptime, and then more shoving-around-of-boxes, and I’m planning to make the leek and potato soup I was craving last weekend when we couldn’t get the grocery stores to cooperate by providing leeks. We were victorious this weekend, and I have three sassy organic leeks for roughly what I would spend for ordinary ones at Central Market.

Life is good. And soon to be leek-flavored. Oh, and first baby sock (church knitting for the past two weeks) is done, all but weaving in the ends. Woohoo!

Better.

The morning meeting ran an hour long. The afternoon meeting finished on time. So I only lost three hours yesterday, not four. I did not complete the two items that Attorney B wanted me to do yesterday for his trial on Monday, but my attorney is out all day in depositions (and thus cannot be dictating new work for me), and tomorrow morning as well. If I catch another day of light mail, then I will complete those two items for attorney B and a report which absolutely must go out today, which now takes precedence. (I did talk to attorney B about the first items, and he said today would do just as well.) Then I can bang out the fourth item tomorrow morning and be, in theory, all caught up on my to-do’s.

I am still struggling to get my email properly filed. And there is some mandatory training which will eat another hour, but maybe I can finish that tomorrow afternoon. Maybe. In the meantime, I did the first two of fourteen installments of that just before going home last night.

In this ward the home teaching and visiting teaching assignments are currently being combined, at least when a married man is assigned as the home teacher. So last night Beloved gave the home teaching message to one of our dear sisters, and I gave her the visiting teaching message, and then we just sat and visited for the better part of an hour. She’s a good woman, with a lot on her plate right now, but she is visibly doing better than she was a month ago. I am looking forward to truly becoming her friend. Beloved has been her home teacher for quite some time. We have a visit set up for after church on Sunday (we teach the bishop and his family!) and another single sister next week. I am so thankful that Beloved has a testimony of the importance of home teaching and visiting teaching and just service in general; it’s one of the things I love best about him.

We are rotating out the older items in his three month supply. Last night it was a carton of squash soup his mother had picked up on one of their jaunts to Costco. Neither of us was a big fan of the squash soup. I had a single ladle full and peppered it liberally (the man is corrupting me!); he had given himself a larger portion. The rest of it went down the drain, with no apology on his part and zero guilt on mine. You know how I am about wasting food. This stuff fits squarely into the will sustain life category.

Beloved has chemo today. I have the temple tonight. It’s going to be a long day for both of us, but I suspect mine will be significantly more edifying than his. We’ve already begun it with a major, mutual laughing fit. This bodes well.

Tomorrow night we are meeting up with some of the recent graduates from the singles program. Most of them will go on to a movie afterward, but it will be a Friday-after-chemo for us, and Beloved will be tired, and that will be our excuse not to spend some of our Scotland money on a movie. Saturday morning he gets the pump off, and we put me on his bank accounts, and then I hope to just come home and have some serious puttering time in my studio, so that we can get the bookcases moved out of our dining room before we feed the missionaries the following Saturday.

I have not seen my kids or grandchildren since the wedding. I miss them. And we both want to start having one couple/tribe or another over for dinner, and eventually have the grands come spend the night (those who are not allergic to the cat).

Beloved is fixing eggs and toast. I’m going to go make myself useful, as well as ornamental.

In which Ms. Ravelled gets her packing chewed out.

Yesterday was mostly wonderful. I had a little come-to-office-manager meeting, in which I was counseled to focus. Deservedly so. Work has been challenging since we moved to the new systems in November. I am still struggling to return to my former level of efficiency and effectiveness. I nearly dropped the ball on something important last Friday. This is the first time in the ten years I have been working for the firm, that this kind of discussion has been necessary.

The irony of this is that today will get eaten up by the monthly staff meeting this morning, and this afternoon we have an office-wide corporate-mandated thing that will likely take another two hours. And I have four major projects for Attorney B, two of which need to be completed today for a trial on Monday.

Thankfully, prayer plus work frequently equals a miracle.

My flowers (on the desk at work) are gorgeous and intoxicating. Dinner last night was delicious, and the company most excellent. I do love that man! And he loved the book I gave him, Why Stop? A Guide to Texas Historical Roadside Markers. There was some drama involved in getting it here, but I had great customer service from the Texas Highways staff.

Hanging onto those thoughts as I head out to the kitchen for granola before scooting out the door. I have stuff that needs to get done, out of the office. This would not be the week to take time off...

Flannel sheets.

We put the flannel sheets on the bed last night. Wow. They’re not all soft and fluffy like the flannel on bolts at the fabric store. This is substantial stuff. And I was toasty-warm all night. I vote to buy a new set every winter until I have enough flannel sheets for the rest of my life.

We tidied up the entrance to the closet in our bedroom. I have yet to find the case for my cell phone. It has been MIA for a couple of weeks now. I think the next step is to take everything out of the closet and frisk it before putting it back. But I’m thinking black hole. It’s the only theory that makes sense.

We ate Vietnamese with the empty nesters last night. Food was better-than-OK; I have two days’ worth of lunches in the fridge, salmon in a red sauce over rice, and very tasty. But still not my cuisine of choice. Beloved was less than impressed with his entree: heavy on the shrimp heads, not so much on shrimp bodies.

I am pleased to report that smooching a man who has eaten shrimp does not set off my allergies.

I need to find the boxes that hold the rest of my clothing. I have been washing and wearing the same stuff I took on our honeymoon, and today is our one-month anniversary. Although this is the perfect excuse to buy new stuff...

Happy V-day, everybody. Heading out to the kitchen for some blueberry hotcakes and non-random acts of smooching. Breakfast in four, says Beloved.

New calling :)

I was set apart after church yesterday. I am the new fourth-Sunday teacher in Relief Society. I will take the assigned General Conference address and build a lesson from it. In my previous stake, we had to meld two or three addresses into a coherent whole. In this stake it will be easier, as there is only one chosen by the stake presidency per month. I teach in two weeks.

Church was good. I have slightly mixed feelings about the new ChiaoGoo needle. The cable has a finely-plied steel wire core inside the plastic sheath. I wish they had had a 40” needle in the shop, as the steel makes the cord less flexible, and the needle portions are a little longer than what I need for this job. It made the gusset decreases on the baby sock more fiddly than I would have liked, dealing with two loops until I had decreased down to 20 stitches on the instep. Now that I am doing a pure and simple Magic Loop, I am very much pleased with the performance.

I waited at church while Beloved did his duty as ward financial clerk. Knitted a little and read the second half of last week’s RS lesson and the first half of the lesson we studied yesterday. I finished that lesson a few minutes before bedtime. So I am now in position to read the lesson for next week, if belatedly obedient and studious.

I made spanakopita from memory, after a short nap. It was pretty good, and next time it will be better. I have been married to Beloved just long enough that I am starting to acclimate to his tastes. I will put in more onion next time, and some freshly-grated pepper, but I was pleased with the onion/spinach/egg/cheese balance overall. And you can’t go wrong with a recipe that uses an entire stick of butter!

I also made a simple salad: sliced baby carrots, grape tomatoes, small red grapes, almond slices, a couple of radishes, a couple of green onions, mine topped with balsamic salad spritzer. I have two days’ worth of salad ready to go, and two portions of spanakopita to take with them, plus a larger container with about three servings of spanakopita that will probably get eaten by Beloved for his lunches.

He fed the dishwasher and did a load of whites and washed the flannel sheets we got as a wedding present; I put them in the dryer. We are having a cold spell, and some areas are getting snow and/or sleet. So we plan to break in the sheets tonight, after an empty-nesters’ dinner.

We are starting to get a rhythm on chores. He’ll wash a load and dump it on the bed. I’ll fold it while sitting on the bed and talking to him as he gets ready for bed. I put my stuff away; he puts his away; we have family prayer, and one of us stays up and putters on the computer for a few minutes.

He wanted to get all the wedding presents out of the living room and into what will become our office. I got that taken care of while we watched [most of] the Grammy Awards. I discovered some singers whose voices I like (Adele, the lead singer of the group Jack Black introduced, the lead of the group that covered the first Beach Boys song), and I thought Jennifer Hudson’s rendition of Whitney’s song was just lovely. Brian Wilson looked a little lost. Glen Campbell and Tony Bennett were heartbreaking. Sir Paul was inspiring. And Elton John in the Pepsi commercials was a hoot!

I’ve paid bills this morning. And mopped the guest bathroom. Beloved is about to fix breakfast. He checked the driveway and road. The sleet woke us up in the middle of the night. It’s wet out there, but no snow on the ground.

This is the part where I mosey out to the kitchen and flirt with the cook. Happy Monday, everybody!

And another [paycheck] bites the dust.

I got paid on Friday. You would not necessarily know that from the balance in my checkbook. Spa treatment (next time I am getting brave and trying the b****i wax), Costco, Sprouts, Albertson’s, and I finally, finally made it to The Knitting Fairy, hoping to replace my broken 4” size 0’s with Signature DP’s, but they do not (yet, anyway) make them that small.

I came home with a ChiaoGoo 32” circ and have transferred the baby sock onto that for today’s church knitting. The ruana is just too big to wrangle in tight quarters. And the whole point of church knitting is to remain awake and engaged during a three-hour block of meetings, not to say “Look at me, I’m knitting, and you’re not. I’m ever so much cooler than you are!”

I am pleased that we got out of Costco without spending $200. By the time we finished all of our errands (including taking Beloved’s sister to the airport), it was dark, not to mention colder than a bill collector’s heart. But the food is all stowed, and we have a nice addition to our three month supply (more on that in a bit), and I have the makings for a batch of reduced-sodium spanakopita.

I am hoping that when we get home from church the urge to cook which was been tantalizing me since Friday morning on the drive to work, will have returned. Because at the moment it appears to have taken off for Club Med and taken my cheese shaver (one of those triangular thingies with a narrow slot and a handle, as opposed to a traditional cutter with a roller and a wire) with it.

I was trying to explain food storage to one of my non-LDS friends at work. It is such a blessing to be married to a man who keeps the commandments. He and his late wife established a year’s supply of the basics: wheat, honey, rice, dried beans, oils, powdered milk, canned tuna, peanut butter, etc. The sorts of things that will, for the most part, keep for 20-25 years under proper conditions and prevent starvation in case of famine. We also both have 72-hour kits, in case of sudden emergencies. Mine is filled with MRE’s. He has better food, and camping gear. We both need to rotate/upgrade the edible contents of our kits, and I am sure he will be tweaking the inedible portions of mine. We are also counseled to build up a three-month supply of things we would actually want to eat during a period which is neither an acute emergency nor a long term crisis.

With the insurance questions pretty much settled, we can now turn our attention to reorganizing and inventorying our long term storage, so that we can use and replace items that are approaching the end of their usefulness, deal with the 72-hour kits, and build up our three month-supply.

Note to self: put a ball of sock yarn and some needles into the 72-hour kit, and another UNO deck.

This is the part where I blow-dry my hair and put on the one skirt of whose whereabouts I am certain and ogle the man who just stepped out of the shower.

Life is good.

Observing the tribe (his).

I spent a good chunk of the party sitting in the kids’ loveseat with Beloved’s sister, watching the last of the food preparation. What the boys lack in numbers, they make up in volume. All of it, last night at least, good-natured.

The kids’ house is lovely. They’ve chosen a warm neutral palette, and it works. The couch, loveseat, and ottoman are covered in a subtle rust paisley. (All the Beloved menfolk are mad for paisley; works for me. [In Beloved’s case, this would include Brad Paisley, which also works for me.])

When Beloved’s firstborn was married last year, there was a superabundance of food. One of the dishes looked as if it held taquitos. Not a big fan of the taquito, so I passed. I have since learned that I missed eating lumpia, which are Filipino and are to the ordinary Tex-Mex taquito what cashmere is to Red Heart. I did not repeat that mistake last night.

We have slightly simplified our schedule for today. After complicating it a little. We will leave shortly for Arlington. I will drop Beloved off in about an hour at my insurance agent’s office. Beloved wants to discuss some aspects of the homeowner’s coverage in person. While they are doing that, I will be getting my pits and face waxed at the spa. Then my agent will drop Beloved off at the spa on his way to his next appointment, and Beloved and I will go to my bank and put him on my account. I am hoping that the changes do not immediately invalidate my debit card, as I pay a lot of my bills that way. The next couple of weeks could get interesting. I may need to borrow one of Beloved’s gas credit cards to keep Lorelai happy. We are probably going to defer putting me onto Beloved's bank account until next Saturday, as that is less critical than getting my bank account into my new, married name.

And then we scurry back here and pick up his sister at the kids’ house and take her to the airport. They had a good, productive meeting with their mother’s doctors yesterday. His sister put the fear-of-Beloveds into the young and somewhat cocky cardiologist.

Gotta scoot. I need to look up some addresses for Beloved, and one for me. Life is good.

Insert mildly exasperated snort here.

I guess if the snooze alarm is the worst of his faults, I’m getting off easy. Welcome to Ravelledland, Ms. Debra. I tried to go over and say how-do from your comment yesterday, but all I have done is to boost your profile views by three. I’m guessing that you blog privately. I’m always a little curious about how people find me. [Many find me just a wee bit strange, but that’s a discussion for another day...]

Today is going to be crazy-busy for Beloved and me. We are both out the door before seven. Me to the salt mines, and Beloved to pick up his mother and sister for a day of doctor visits. Beloved and his sister are loaded for bear. I would like to be a mouse in the corner.

The snooze alarm just went off a second time. The first time it happened, I told Beloved, “This is the part where you get in the shower.”

To which he responded, “No, seven more minutes.”

And I went “Aughhhh!” hence today’s title.

The second time it went off, he said, “This is the part where I get in the shower,” leaped out of bed, came up behind me and fluffed the girls (sending me into helpless fits of laughter), and said, “Ravel that sleave!”

I think it’s fair to say that I am now thoroughly awake, and he is thoroughly pleased with himself.

In other news, we have made a decision on insurance for the house and the cars, and my insurance agent will be a busy boy getting that taken care of. I’m so pleased that the numbers worked out and I get to continue a long and cordial working relationship with him.

I had a good session at the temple last night. I never know what my assignment(s) will be until I get there, and sometimes my schedule changes due to an influx of patrons. We may look like a bunch of serene and interchangeable blue-haired angels to the temple patrons, but sometimes we have to scoot and scurry without appearing to do so. It’s never the same night twice. I always go home physically tired and spiritually uplifted. Last night was no exception.

May I just say how nice it is to get home less than half an hour after leaving the temple, rather than having to drive an hour (or more, depending on construction) to get to Fort Worth. Not to mention how nice it is to have a lively, loving husband waiting up for me at home. We were both pretty pooped last night, but not too tired to sit and talk awhile before crashing.

I am totally jazzed about the birthday party tonight. Beloved had just taken a German chocolate cake out of the oven when I got home last night and was making the coconut-pecan frosting (all from scratch). He will pick up the birthday cards and the gift cards, and all I have to do is drive home from work and look pretty. I’m not used to that. I could get used to it.

My turn for the shower, before he walks over here and fluffs me again and I totally lose my concentration. Happy Friday, everyone. I hope it’s payday, or that you have a chocolate stash, and that all the surprises will be good ones.

Over and out.

Home, home I’m deranged

I’m reasonably sure that I’ve used that title before, and it doesn’t really fit how I’m feeling, but I wanted to use it. So I did.

Work is going [suspiciously?] well this week. Attorney B’s secretary is out on vacation, and I’m getting both attorneys’ mail read pretty much on schedule, and their mail out, and my inbox whittled down a little, and the to-do’s checked off as they crop up.

My attorney has been working remotely for much of the week. Sick child, workers at his home, and the usual assortment of depositions. Which means that he will be bringing me a raft of dictation tapes when he returns to the office this morning. But Attorney B will be out, dealing with workmen at his home, and that should keep things fairly calm. I have three new suits that need to be answered on Monday, two for my attorney and one for Attorney B, so we know what I will be doing today. I am just hoping that my PRT (annual performance review) does not get sandwiched in there somewhere.

I am making slow but steady progress on the ruana. I joke about how Beloved is cutting into my knitting time. He reminded me, lovingly, that I am cutting into his reading time. We spend a lot of our evenings just sitting and talking, watching cooking shows, or doing stuff at church or with the family.

The twins’ birthday is tomorrow, so there will be a tribal feast at his firstborn’s new home, which I have yet to see. Like Secondborn’s, it is the largest venue and best suited for when this half of the family gets together. Can’t wait!

I spent half an hour or more yesterday, getting Beloved on my health insurance, which I thought I had done two weeks ago. I had to haul in the big guns from HR, as there was some sort of glitch that prevented my completing the process on my own. I am reasonably tech-savvy. Maybe I should say intermittently tech-savvy. But when I called my HMO to inquire about Beloved’s insurance card, they told me he wasn’t on the system. He is now. And in another 2-3 weeks we can call and get his PCP entered into the system. We can keep our respective PCP’s, both of whom work for the same local physician group, just in different offices. Mine is in Arlington. His is in Richardson. I would drive halfway across Texas to see mine.

Plumber is supposed to come today, rescheduled from yesterday. And next week Lorelai goes into the shop for maintenance and then her safety inspection. On Saturday we are putting one another on our bank accounts: yay for Saturday banking! And then I can deal with Social Security, and we can work on getting the cars co-titled (it is too a word; I just made it up).

This is the part where I log off and hit the shower. Beloved is leaping up to make a good, old-fashioned breakfast for me, as today is my long day. One of his sisters is flying in tonight, and tomorrow they and his mom tackle some issues with her healthcare providers.

I am so thankful to be married to a man who is kind, competent pretty much all across the board, and just a joy to be around.

Even if he is inordinately fond of the snooze alarm, which tends to set my teeth on edge. (He snickered when I read that to him.)

Wednesday? Really?

Good, productive day at work yesterday. Nice visit with the home teachers last night. Another fantastic dinner before they arrived. Quiet(ish) evening at home with Beloved.

Hoping for another productive day at work today. I have a lot on my to-do list that must get done. Maybe a little knitting in the break room before I fire up my workstation, but I spent half an hour moving furniture around and am running a bit behind. Then more knitting at lunch, and more puttering when I get home tonight.

We broke open the UNO deck last night. I was ahead by over 100 points and had two successive hands that effectively cured my smugness. I was pleased to discover that my formerly excessive competitiveness has cooled somewhat. Somewhat.

Marriage, almost one month in, is even better than I had imagined it might be. I really, really like this man!

Stick a fork in me.

Or just fold me up and toss me into a moving box. Every scrap of stuff, and nearly every scrap of dust, is out of the duplex. I was very, very happy there, for over three and a half years. It was perhaps the longest stretch of peace in my adult life. I am grateful for that time in which to study and ponder and serve and grow. Without it, I might not have recognized the jewel that is Beloved when he came into my life. A different sort (and level) of peace has entered my life; I am well and truly blessed. Now I get to help figure out how to turn *his* home into *our* home.

And one of my young friends said, “M&M Dark Chocolate Raspberry - best thing since Hershey stopped making raspberry flavored chocolate chips.” I need to stop at Wally World to pick up another padded envelope to mail the house keys. I will look for M&M’s while I am there.

I knitted up three rows of the Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool yesterday. Wonderful yarn. I will need to save up and make a sweater from this. And in the meantime it is playing nicely with the other yarns in the ruana.

Today I need to contact my health insurer and request an insurance card for Beloved. I hope that he can keep the PCP he has been seeing, who is part of the same outfit as mine, just in Dallas County, not Tarrant. And I need to let my insurance agent know that I’m out of the duplex. And Beloved needs to get numbers from his insurance companies so we can consolidate policies, one way or the other.

Home teachers are coming tonight. Plumber is coming tomorrow. And I’m skipping Knit Night for two weeks.

Time to go soak my head. Later, gators!

He’s watching the Superbowl.

I’m typing in here for a few minutes. As I dropped a kiss on his forehead and headed back to the computer, I grinned and said, “I’m married to you. I don’t have to watch the game. Of course, it’s not the Packers.”

I did watch the halftime show and thought it was much better than last year’s, my qualified appreciation for Madonna notwithstanding. At least she kept all her clothes on, and she sang two of the handful of her songs that I like and love to dance to.

I went over to the duplex after church. The oven is clean. The fridge is clean. The shower stall is clean, and I have goosed the bathroom floor with enough 409 to make the final installment of I’m-outta-here a breeze tomorrow night. (As I did not get my nails done yesterday, I’m killing two stones with one bird.)

I have a new calling at church. I am elated. Will share the details after I’m sustained next week.

I broke one of my four-inch DP’s while knitting at church today. I took a baby sock to work on, because the ruana is getting unwieldy. I stood to let someone into our row before sacrament meeting, and I felt the needle snap between my fingers. (Given the chance, I’d still stand to let them sit down with us. I can buy more knitting needles. And will, most likely next weekend. This is one of my relatively new KnitPicks Harmony DP’s, and I’m not crazy about the points on the teensier sizes, although I love my larger Harmony’s like you wouldn’t believe.

Let the record show that with great attention and a generous scoop of patience, it is possible to make progress on a baby sock using three whole needles and two half-needles. Just in case you were wondering.

I’m heading back out to the living room to flirt with my husband, which is even more fun than knitting, watching the Superbowl commercials, or eating raw sugar cookie dough.

Long crazy day.

I woke up about 5:30 after what I think was a solid night’s sleep. Knitted for awhile, then started moving furniture around. Late in the morning, I loaded empty boxes and the cooler into Lorelai and headed west. The bathroom is packed up; so are the fridge and its freezer. I sprayed oven cleaner inside the oven and will bend the Sabbath ever so slightly by heading back to Fort Worth after church tomorrow to clean the bathroom and kitchen. I have a duplex in the mire, and I have reached the end of my patience with this project.

I had hoped to get my nails done between working on the duplex and coming home for dinner with the missionaries. I ran out of time. (Too much time spent fixing up one corner of the living room before I left.) I did make it to Ulta and pick up another bottle of palest pink nail polish, which was on clearance. So I got an $8.50 bottle for $3.00; way better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

When I pulled into the driveway, Beloved had manhandled the psychotic loveseat out onto the curb, to be picked up on Tuesday if somebody else doesn’t make off with it first. It’s not pathologically ugly, even if it is my least favorite shade of blue. It’s just nearly impossible to get up out of, once in. And I would rather use that energy for much knitting or other fun activities.

I had a small falling-down in the LYS (local yarn shop) in Fort Worth when I went in to say goodbye. Came home with a skein of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool in a lovely garnet, also a hank of Fiesta Gelato in red-to-plum. I wound the former by hand, as I have no idea where my umbrella swift and ball winder might be. I know, I know: in a box, in my studio. I am regretting, slightly, not taking the clerk up on her offer to wind up both hanks for me. The Silky Wool offered little attitude as I slowly and reverently wound it; the Gelato is 100% rayon, a slinky ribbon yarn, and to attempt to wind it without the proper tools would be an express ticket to a rest home.

Beloved tweaked what I had already accomplished; when I came home the other half of the living room was not merely tidy, it was vacuumed and spot-treated. Our living room, and our breakfast table, look like grownups live here! Tomorrow during the Super Bowl he will go through the contents of the hope chest, and I will pack up anything he deems appropriate for donation.

I am now going to attempt to enter my new yarn in my stash on Ravelry, and then I will rejoin Beloved in the living room. He is watching “Chopped”. Thankfully, he does not have HGTV in his TV package, or I would disappear into the handful of shows I’m aware of, there, and get nothing useful done at all.

Have a blessed and peaceful Sabbath, everybody. I will be bending mine mercilessly. If your team is playing tomorrow, I hope you enjoy the game. (My children are scratching their heads and wondering what has happened to their mother. Apparently football fumes are as pernicious as yarn fumes. Who knew?)

The puns are flying thick and fast.

Told him that it was nice to be needed. Or kneaded. He cracked up.

Yesterday was weird. Another good, productive day at work, notwithstanding the first of four quarterly secretarial job function meetings which lasted something over two hours.

My attorney is on vacation today and Monday, so I have a fair chance of getting completely caught up, depending on what Attorney B needs; his secretary is off today and all next week.

My sinuses have inexplicably decided to drain. This is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. I just wish they had waited until tomorrow. Do you have any idea how hard it is to cough reverently in a temple session? Particularly if you are one of the ordinance workers? And I had no voice for much of the evening, due to my efforts to suppress the coughing. I had a pocket full of Mento’s. They helped.

Beloved told me that we had some Mucinex in a kitchen cupboard. My own stash is in one of maybe a hundred boxes somewhere in the house. Sadly, he has Mucinex-DM, which might suppress the hacking but would also make me hallucinate, so that would be a no. I ended up taking a single cayenne capsule washed down with plenty of water, and another one about 4:30 this morning, and not only does my head feel better (I think I cauterized something), but the inflammation in my lower legs is almost completely gone. They have been a little poofy all week, I think from the stress of moving, but never as bad as they were before I started massage therapy last summer.

I was so tired when I got home last night that I was on the verge of tears. Beloved had me in stitches within minutes. Being married to him is better, in every way, than I imagined at my most imaginative.

In a few minutes he will hop in his car, and I will hop in Lorelai, and I will follow him to the gas station and bring him home. His car (unnamed as yet) needs some work. And then it will be Lorelai’s turn, and we will have three functioning vehicles (his is drivable but needs some fairly significant work, as does she).

I am hoping for a quietly productive day at work, and a quiet evening at home. Tomorrow morning I will head back to Fort Worth and clean the duplex, and then I will be done. We are feeding the missionaries tomorrow night. Heaven knows where we will put them, but as Miz Scarlett would say, tomorrow is another day.

Checkbook is balanced.

Ms. Ravelled is somewhat balanced. Sorta like the karma chameleon, it comes and goes, it comes and goes... I have also done my taxes (but not yet filed) and will owe the grand total of $28, unless there is some sort of glitch that pops up when I go back and review. My bills are paid, except maybe the phone bill; need to check on that. And the tags on Lorelai, which have to be taken care of by the end of the month, but I want to combine that with switching over to my married name and putting Beloved on the title, as he will be doing with his car.

I am reading an amazing book, And They Were Not Ashamed, by Laura M. Brotherson, CFLE (Beloved says clinical fun lover extraordinaire?), an LDS counselor. It pertains to healthy marital intimacy. We always think we are normal, right? but sometimes it is good to get a second opinion.

Turns out that all the counseling I have gotten for one reason or another, over the years, particularly the spiritual boot camp I did about five years ago, has healed or cured most of my hang-ups. This is a book from a Christian perspective, with more detail than one finds in most Christian books on marital intimacy, and it is specifically written to help good women get over the Good Girl Syndrome.

We spend a lot of time and energy teaching our children to just-say-no when it comes to premarital sex. We spend very little time teaching them that once we are married, God wants us to relax and savor our spouse. Lots and lots of uptight people out there, men as well as women, but mostly women. I tried to teach my kids that married sex was wonderful and worth waiting for, but mostly they did not want to have any sort of discussion about the topic, and I certainly had my own issues to deal with, which I have mostly-done. This is a good book (combined with appropriate counseling) for women who have been sexually abused, to help them wrap their heads around healthy, appropriate behaviors.

Even if you have a good marriage and a healthy sex life, you might learn something. I have learned a lot, and I am only on the first, skimming, read-through. I will go back later (soon-later, rather than eventually-later) and do the exercises. I read bits of it to Beloved. There is one fantastic cartoon, fairly early on, that almost made me weep with laughter.

Time to log off and tell Beloved about my day and listen to him tell me about his. One of the many, many things I like about being married to this man.

Deep cleansing breath + nap.

We got most of the big stuff moved on Saturday. When we left the duplex last night (after almost the last of the packing), it looked the way we wished it had when we left on Saturday. When we left it today, it looked the way we wished it had last night. All that remains is the stuff in the fridge/freezer, a shelf and a half of stuff in the loo, and my cleaning supplies. Wow, look at that! Light at the end of the tunnel and not even a hint of oncoming train!

I. have. a. lot. of. stuff. Even after all the winnowing I have done over the past three and a half years.

I filled Lorelai with small boxes and open containers. She is parked out on the street, locked up tighter than the nun I used to live like, and will get unloaded when it is a little cooler and I’ve had a nap. I have showered and shampooed, while Beloved returns the trailer and the pickup. I am very very clean, and very very tired.

I popped a nail last night. Found it this afternoon when I emptied something annoying out of my sneaker. The intelligent thing to do would be to put on a fresh pair of jeans and head back to Arlington and have NailDude fix it tonight. And then go on to Knit Night. The more likely scenario is that I will post this, shut down Beloved’s computer, take three steps backward, and see how much of a nap I catch before he comes home from his errands.

I may need to go shopping in order to have something to wear to work tomorrow, because a stack of storage tubs as high as my head, maybe higher, is blocking the IKEA armoire in which I cleverly placed such clothing whose whereabouts I knew.

My W-2 arrived in yesterday’s mail. I got most of the way through preparing my return before we left the house this morning. As it stands, I will owe a whopping $28 to Uncle Sugar. Whatever shall I do?

I might as well bid you all a gracious good evening. I think I can stay awake just long enough to put my remaining juice (this glass is definitely less than half-full) into the fridge and toddle back here to bed.

Bending the Sabbath, ever so slightly

We found places for two bookcases and two dressers yesterday. I temporarily transferred the clothing I hang to the IKEA armoire in my studio. I found my brown suede jacket and wore it with the only skirt whose whereabouts I know, to church, where my name was read in as the newest member of Beloved’s ward. Our friend the RS president has submitted my name for a calling.

No nap after church, but I finished a small project while Beloved tidied up one of his responsibilities as ward financial clerk. And I got some knitting time, some reading time, and some family time with two-thirds of his kids and his mom.

Beloved’s shredder has a new home, and kids picked up their dogs. The cat seems a little lost to have his nap buddy gone (the two Crickets would curl up in dog-Cricket's bed as if they were litter-mates).

I just woke up from a reasonably good night’s sleep. We seem to be solving the conundrum of elbows and knees and what to do when somebody rolls over. His restless legs (a byproduct of the chemo) no longer startle me awake. The souvenir aches and strains from Saturday’s move are pretty much resolved. I no longer squirt water up my nose with the hand-held shower. I know how he prefers the dishwasher to be loaded, and I know where the forks live.

Beloved is going to vacuum the floor in the studio, and I need to find the outlets so I’ll know where to put my sewing table, the bookcases, etc. But that is a project for another day. Right now I need to hop in the shower and hope that there is just enough mousse left to un-scary my hair for the workday ahead. I think the replacement canister is still in the cupboard at the duplex (I’ll find out tonight).

I have no idea what I want to wear to work today, but I know where my options are.

He hung one of our engagement pictures in the dining room last night. One is on my desk at work, and the third is atop the black bookcase, out in the hall (this is the bookcase that the children’s father found in or near a dumpster at our first apartment in Arlington 19 years ago, which we scrubbed thoroughly, and which has followed me through the 1-2-3-4-5-6 moves since then). The bookcase which stood in the hall outside the loo at the duplex, and contained my collection of cookbooks, inspiring Beloved’s respectful query as to why I had so many if I didn’t cook.

I have yet to cook, here, but I’ve helped. We are feeding the missionaries on Saturday. Depending on how tired Beloved and I are after his chemo pump comes off that morning, I am toying with the idea of making a big pan of lasagne (and wondering just how to adapt it to my new lactose-free world). Ah well, we will think of something.

This is the part where I step away from the computer and into the shower. Depending on my workflow today, I will see if I can leave work early or take all or part of tomorrow off, to finish up the move.

Girls just want to be done. Girls? just want to be done!

Welcome, welcome Sabbath morning.

The kids closed on their house Thursday afternoon. I came home from the temple to a house that was significantly less full of boxes than the one I left that morning. We still have their dogs, as the recent rains have made the ground too wet to scrape for the installation of sod in their back yard.

Ways in which marriage has changed me: I woke up, wandered out to the kitchen for a glass of chocolate almond milk, and was greeted by the dogs and our cat. “Good morning, Gracie. Good morning, Cash. Good morning, Cricket.” Walked back into our room and told Beloved that I now talk to animals. (I guess as long as they don’t talk back to me, I am not in Dr. Dolittle territory...)

The move yesterday went remarkably well. This is the first move in fifteen years over which I have not been in total, if relative, control. We knew when we went to bed on Friday night, after spending a couple of hours at the duplex boxing up more stuff, that we were not going to git ‘er all done yesterday. But we got the big pieces, and most of the boxes, brought over while we had the rental truck. My pretty armoire, the worktable in my studio, the Chastity Bed, and the sofa table that Br. Sushi helped me build, still need to come over here, and there are a few dibs and dabs in each of the rooms, but we’ll take care of that next week. My wonderful landlord says not to sweat it.

1BDH, Fourthborn and Fiancé, and one of our friends in this ward got us loaded up. 1BDH went off to his study group (he has one more year of college and will graduate in December and by the way turns 40 on Tuesday and hates having a fuss made, so of course I am going to make a fuss; singing may be involved). The kids and my bed and Beloved’s old mattress and the sofa got dropped off at their place. I picked up a gift card for now-eldest grandson, whose birthday was Friday and whose party was yesterday afternoon, tanked Lorelai, grabbed a burger and fries at In N Out (moving apparently requires tons of fried potatoes, because I had an egg sandwich and hash browns as a second breakfast after picking up my kids), and headed over here.

When I got here, Beloved and mutual friend and Mel and Squishy were nearly done unloading the truck. She was playing Tetris with boxes in my studio. The friend went home with instructions for his wife to hug the stuffing out of him. The tribe and I went on to the birthday party (seriously good cake, and I met more of the family). Beloved and I came home and took a nap. He cooked dinner (chicken cutlets, steamed vegetables, and you should worry about me because I actually enjoyed the broccoli and cauliflower, probably because they were consorting with carrots) while I puttered.

I know he was a little frustrated because we didn’t get it all knocked out in one trip. And I was a little frustrated because his chemo schedule means we can’t wait until next weekend and grab another truck, with my spending the next few evenings boxing and packing what’s left, and cleaning the duplex within an inch of its life. But the cool thing is, we were not frustrated with one another, and we were not cranky or short. I don’t mind sharing control with a man who is so quietly and humbly competent.

The timing of our wedding, and the mini-moon, and the delayed closing on the kids’ house, could have turned what we both devoutly hope is the last move into a big ugly mess, and while it was not as smooth or quick or seamless as either would have wished, I am both pleased and relieved at how well it went.

Today’s project, after church, is to move all the wedding gifts that are stacked against one wall out of the way, so that we can move my pretty dresser (the painted one I scored on closeout at Pier One a couple of years ago, with the Indian/Russian motifs and the glass fronts on the drawers and on top, where the dolls have been lounging for the past two+ years) into the bedroom and start filling it with my clothing. The dolls are safely out of the way in what will become our office.

I will probably take a little time off from work, maybe as early as tomorrow afternoon, maybe all day Tuesday depending on how much Beloved gets done while I’m at work tomorrow, to take care of things at the duplex. But first, there is church, and then the kids who just moved out are coming over to grab a few last things (not sure what at this point, but Beloved says they are coming over, and I’m happy to see them and to not have to be in charge of anything), and then I hope another nap.

Feeling a little like one of the pioneer children who sang as they walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, but there is a good-smelling man standing three feet from me, and it’s my turn for the shower, and the raisin bran is calling my name.

Will leave you with a bit of moving advice: if you are planning a big move on Saturday morning, probably not wise to help consume the last third of a bag of gingersnaps as a bedtime snack on Friday night. The 1812 Overture had nothing on me yesterday!

Yesterday was a wee bit crazy.

The kids did close on their house, and they are about 85-90% moved out. The big dogs are still here until, probably, Sunday night. The sod in the back yard has to be down for 24 hours or so before they can go frolic.

Suddenly, the house is huge. My small dolls are in a basket on the bed which is in the room that will become our office. There is a ginormous armoire (Ikea, I think) in what will become my studio. Beloved is meeting me over at the duplex this afternoon or evening, and we will be doing what I devoutly hope is the last of the prep work for tomorrow’s move.

Beloved is making breakfast as we speak: raisin bran and toad in the hole, which is what I grew up calling gashouse eggs, probably a corruption of gasthaus. Piece of bread with a hole torn out in the center and an egg fried in there. Comfort food at just about its most simple.

Beloved is planning to dismantle my computer tonight and bring it back here. He is most generous with his computer, and I am thankful, and I want my own computer with my own bookmarks and files and fidgets and stuff.

Pottery Barn has a nice little touch: the gift tags that have come with some of our wedding gifts, have little keys attached to a house-shaped card. The keys are just about the perfect size to whip up a chatelaine for Blessing. I would love to make a fitted Renaissance gown for her, with a proper chatelaine hanging on her hip. Something fun to think about.

I did not eat properly yesterday, didn’t drink enough water, forgot my enzymes and my vitamin D, and was so groggy that for the first time in four months, I had to resort to a bottle of Cherry Coke just to keep my nose from diving into my keyboard at work. That bottle was gone by lunch. Thankfully, I was able to sleep last night. I stole the pillow off the bed his mother has been sleeping in, and I slipped it under the down pillow on my side of our bed, and no TMJ this morning, woohoo!

The memory foam pillow is too thick and unyielding for my recalcitrant head. The down pillow is lovely and soft and inadequate. I will be buying a fat, sassy feather and down pillow this weekend, to go with some of our new pillowcases.

Ankles are still a little swollen this morning, but I managed to avoid hives. I think it’s just a combination of wrong food, inadequate sleep, inadequate hydration, etc.

Breakfast is ready.

Milk and cookies at 4:00a.m.

I woke up half an hour or so ago, with an aching jaw but otherwise fairly well rested. I need different pillows. We have two memory foam pillows and two down pillows (one apiece), neither of which is just-right for me.

I was groggy off and on all day yesterday, the natural consequence of staying up too late on Monday and Tuesday nights. Last night was somewhat better; I think I was asleep around 10:00. The household is all pretty excited: the kids are supposed to finally, *finally* close on their house this morning and start moving this afternoon. All that happy energy bouncing around inside the walls of our home, made it a little tricky to get to sleep.

Beloved made a huge pot of pasta last night. I made a huge salad. I will be taking leftovers of both to work with me this morning. And I will have more of the same for lunch tomorrow.

I got some serious knitting done yesterday, before work and at lunch, and just before bedtime. I am within a couple of inches (I think) of halfway done on the ruana.

Beloved and Firstborn are both making noises about being at the temple tonight. Maybe they will be serving on the same session? I won’t know my schedule until I get there, but my bag is packed and ready to go. I am so thankful for this weekly opportunity to reset my internal clock to Heaven Standard Time. Everything sort of slows down when I am in the temple. It doesn’t matter if I am there as an ordinance worker, or as a patron. It just sets my world right, every time.

It was raining cats and dogs and little fishes when I went to work yesterday. There was a small river running off the end of our driveway. I managed to avoid stepping in that, but it was dark enough when I stepped off the curb, that I stepped right into another rivulet and got my sneakers (and feet) wet. Thankfully I am neither sugar nor salt, and did not melt.

I like working in the kitchen with Beloved. It is definitely a one-butt kitchen, so I take what I’m working on over to the breakfast table in the corner and work on it there. I’m out of his way, and vice versa, but we can talk and banter and grab the occasional quick smooch. We have not yet worked out a seamless rhythm, but this is only Day Twelve of our marriage. Wow, almost two weeks!

He definitely needs more sleep than I do, both from his natural rhythms and the added stress of fighting cancer. And he loves the snooze button. Right now the alarm is off, because I knew I was up for the count. Otherwise, it would be going off right about now, and it would go off every eight minutes until he turned it off and got up to fix breakfast.

I am getting totally spoiled by this. I am eating better (in terms of quality) than I have since I left the parental home. I am also recalibrating quantity. I knew how much food I needed to get through a workday when I was creating/packing it myself. My appetite has been all over the place this week. I go from ravenous to stuffed in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

It is getting less and less weird to be sharing a bed again. I don’t think I’m waking up much more often on a typical night than I was before we got married. The middle-aged bladder still rousts me at least once, most nights. And I am losing that sense of holy cow, there’s a man in my bed! Elbows and knees are becoming less of an issue when it’s time to sleep. I’m still having mobility challenges with my right hip, but I think walking together in the mornings will take care of that, over time. It’s raining again this morning, not as hard as yesterday, but enough that I am not interested in swimming around the block before breakfast. Thankfully, in a couple of days the kids will have all of their boxes out of the dining room, and I would theoretically have access to the exercise bike, so that is another option for mornings like this. I am coveting, a little, Beloved’s son’s recumbent bike, which will be emulating Elvis and leaving the building.

Right now I am thankful for a husband who sleeps like a rock. He said it wouldn’t bother him for the computer to be on, and he wasn’t kidding. (The reverse would not be true: even with the hissing of my CPAP, the clicking of the keys would bug me, as would the light from the monitor.) I will be thankful to have my own computer here, set up in what is probably going to be our joint office, so that I can bang away to my heart’s content when the Insomnia Fairy pays a call.

But in the meantime I am so very thankful for what I have.

A packer, but not from Green Bay

So, Monday night Firstborn and I organized the contents of the couch and the coffee table. Last night I tackled a small project that has been bugging me for awhile. Took about an hour, and when I left the duplex I had that small glow of satisfaction that comes from crossing something off the honey-do list.

We are getting rain in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Light rain, heavy rain, intermittent rain. No walking this morning, because I do not want two showers before work. Sounds like a frog-strangler out there. Lots of rumbles and booms, not to mention flashes of lightning.

While driving to Fort Worth last night, I hit a patch of water and hydroplaned slightly. Thankfully, I had both hands on the wheel, and I took my foot off the gas, and two seconds later (and for the next minute or so) it was thankYou-thankYou-thankYou. Not enough time to be scared, even after the fact.

From the duplex, I drove to Knit Night, where I handed off bits of yarn to my friend Grace for her friend the art teacher. I was still coveting, slightly, the last couple of yards of purple Manos Lace (leftover from the shawlette I made for Lark last year), but hand it over I did.

Tonight I will not be driving to Fort Worth after work. Instead, we have a Blue and Gold dinner at church, and at least one of my new grandsons is a Cub Scout. Beloved and I are planning a quiet evening at home, after that, and a much earlier bedtime than I’ve had the past couple of nights.

The new commute is working out well. I drive the dreaded Central Expressway into downtown, and rather like the Dread Pirate Roberts, it’s not so scary.

Beloved tells me that breakfast is almost ready, so this is it for now. Happy Wednesday, y’all!

Tuesday morning.

Work went well yesterday. I cleared another two days’ worth of mail, then headed to Fort Worth by way of Firstborn’s. I was hungry. She was hungry. So I scooped her up, and we went to my place by way of In N Out Burger (where we shared an order of fries with our burgers).

She helped me tackle the couch and coffee table. In an hour of work, we had all the sewing stuff together, all the knitting stuff together (and mostly in an open box), had found my thank-you notes so I can get started on that, another batch of printed-off knitting patterns which are now loosely tucked into a big notebook that is a souvenir of my Mary Kay Lady days. I need to pick up more plastic sleeves to hold those pages; there is still plenty of room in that notebook.

I dropped her off at her house at 9:44 and headed home. Beloved was dozing when I got there, but the porch light was on, a night light was on in our room, I slugged down some dark chocolate almond milk and a cookie, and it was lights out for Ms. Ravelled.

My friend Rebecca will not be at Knit Night tonight, so I will head back to Fort Worth after work, tackle what’s left in the kitchen, and come home (I hope) significantly earlier than I did last night.

Wish I could give you a visual of Chutzpah’s little bear sitting in the tee-ninetsy red wagon. But we’re thinking that the computer will come home with us on Friday night, when we plan on batting cleanup prior to getting the truck on Saturday morning.

The kids are really, truly, supposed to close on their house this morning. Beloved says that the last email they received, said that there were six closings ahead of them, and they should close yesterday afternoon late (not!) or sometime this morning.

Gotta go. There’s a dear man who needs a goodbye smooch, and then I’m out the door with grapes, some potato salad, the leftover salad from Sunday, and oh, I need to grab my hummus from the outside fridge and fix a half dozen skinny slices of cheese for the last of the melba toast in my cubby at work.

Be good. Remember who you are. You know the drill!

Sitting here with my mother-in-love’s dog.

Who just trotted into the bedroom as if he owned the place. This would be Cricket-the-Dog, as opposed to Cricket-the-Cat, who belonged to Beloved’s late wife. The two Crickets get along famously, frequently curling up for a good snooze in the dog bed.

Good day at church, although I did not take quite enough yarn along for working on the ruana. I finished the stripe repeat about ten minutes before Beloved finished his clerk duties, so I danced through my inbox and posted a couple of responses on Facebook while I waited.

I am seriously digging being married, and not simply because of the food. Love him, love his family, the food is amazing [it would be a sin of ingratitude not to mention how good the food is, chez nous], the helpless fits of laughter are frequent and exhilarating. I like the ward. I like not being a Primary teacher. I like the Gospel Doctrine teachers, who are well-prepared and elicit lots of class participation. Relief Society rocks, pure and simple.

Mel and Squishy ordered Temperance a pair of black slacks for Christmas, which have been riding around in the bottom of my bag for a couple of weeks. Today after church I finally put them on her, and they are a perfect fit, and she is delighted to no longer be commando under her jumper.

When we were on our honeymoon, I picked up a key chain in one of the shops which is a wee replica of a Radio Flyer wagon. It’s just the right size for Chutzpah to haul her bear around in. This will be fun for photo shoots, once we have the house reorganized.

Tomorrow night Beloved will be feeding the missionaries, but I will be heading to Fort Worth right after work, to deal with some of the packing that only I can organize. There is stuff on the couch that has drifted out from my studio, and I need to take everything off the couch, sort it out, put it where it belongs, and then we can pack everything together by topic or interest. I am planning a shorter pack-fest on Tuesday, which is earmarked for Knit Night if my friend Rebecca will be there. She has several yards of fabric that I have promised to take off her hands, which I think will be suitable either for doll clothing or for me-clothing.

He is puttering out in the kitchen with the game on. I am enjoying a few minutes, guilt-free, to type in the manner to which I am accustomed. If he is in the room with me, I’d far rather be paying attention to him (not to mention it is also good manners).

Not spending much time on Facebook or the computer these days, but not missing either particularly much, except for my blog time.

I also got a great nap after church. A couple of hours’ worth. This whole sleeping together thing is a bit of a mixed blessing. Still trying to figure out what to do with elbows and knees, and how to rearrange myself if one of us rolls over. I am used to going to sleep on my left side, then rolling over on my back. So if I happen to be on my right side, there is some interference from my CPAP mask, because the air tube feeds in on the right and smooshes into my face, and sometimes it disorients the part that snugs up against my nose. I think I must have awakened 20 times, that first night together, mostly from the uh-oh-there’s-a-man-in-my-bed-no-wait-I-think-he-belongs-here-OK-back-to-sleep-now.

He says that last night the machine was noisier than usual, and he thought it was maybe not fitting me just right, and he asked if I was OK, and I said yes, none of which I remember. I do know that I woke up a lot last night, and I didn’t feel as rested, but the nap this afternoon seems to have taken care of that.

Dinner tonight was salmon burgers, and I made enough salad that there are leftovers for two days’ worth of lunches, and I’ll have another burger to take for dinner on the drive to Fort Worth tomorrow night, and he made his first attempt to replicate a dessert we had while on our honeymoon.

I think I will play an AARP game or two to sharpen up my brain, and then I’m heading out to the living room with my knitting, to watch him watch the game.

He just brought me a bowl, saying, “Here, have a bite of this. It’ll be better after it’s chilled overnight and set up a bit.” Homemade potato salad, for tomorrow’s non-drive-by fooding of the missionaries.

Seeya!

The kitchen is nearly packed.

First thing we did, was to empty out the pretty chest of drawers in the living room, pack up or pitch its contents, and start filling the surrounding floorspace with towers of filled and labeled boxes. It never ceases to amaze me that two people, working well together, can accomplish things more than twice as fast as one person working alone. Synergy is a miraculous thing!

We packed for an hour or two, then went to lunch at Star Cafe, where we both had the chicken fried steak, cream gravy, salad (w/ranch), authentic (i.e., slightly lumpy) mashed potatoes, and a biscuit lightly flecked with cheese. Yes, I know, very little of it was on my good food list, and other than feeling parched because of the salt, no discernible consequences, i.e., crankiness, swelling, or whining from my bad ankle. Though I did get a little croupy at Firstborn’s because of Willow’s cat.

Who is in heat, and very vocal.

Beloved’s chemo pump is off, and so far there seem to be no side effects from this new drug. The neuropathy in his fingers seems to be going away.

I woke up at dark-thirty this morning and put several rows on the ruana before the rest of the household was up and about. So it’s been a longish day, with much to show for it, and I’m somewhat more tired than I would expect for it only being 9:00. I’m about ready to call it a night.

Current plan is for me to go to the duplex after work on Monday and pack up some or all of the stuff that needs to be packed by nobody but me, and put the trash and recycling out on the curb. On Tuesday I’ll hit Knit Night, pack more boxes if I didn’t finish on Monday, and bring the bins back in; then on Friday we’ll both head over there for any last-minute stuff, but we devoutly hope that when we go home that night we will be ready to start loading the truck bright and early Saturday morning, because now-eldest grandson is having a birthday party that afternoon. He turns 12 on Friday, which means another priesthood holder in the family on Saturday.

Night, y’all. [Yes, I’m still as happy as if I had good sense.]

He put a love note in my lunchbox!

That was Wednesday, my first day back at work after our mini-moon. And then this morning, when I grabbed a neatly-rolled bundle of underwear another was tucked inside.

This is one seriously cool dude I have married!

Work went well again today. I dealt with either two or three days’ worth of mail, plus the day’s to-do’s, and by the time I left the office, I had a respectable-looking desk. And two more rows of knitting done between pre-work knitting and my lunch hour. I am nearly halfway done with the ruana that may turn out to be an afghan. I will need to make that decision fairly soon.

We went out for Japanese food tonight. I had their Scottish salmon but could detect no brogue. Just perfectly cooked fish with an impeccable and thoroughly fascinating sauce, plated on seven or eight small logs of asparagus, a little shredded lettuce, and thinly sliced/steamed?fried? yams and pumpkin, with a huge bowl of steamed rice.

I bought the Winter IK, their handmade-gifts issue, and the premier issue of another magazine that has a red cabled shrug on the cover and all sorts of neat stuff going on inside the magazine proper.

It’s almost 10:00, and we have a lot going on tomorrow: Beloved gets the chemo pump off, and we are going to try to finish packing up the duplex, even if we don’t move anything until next weekend. I want to swing by Firstborn’s and pick up the cake topper and the Scentsy stuff which she gave me a year or two ago for my birthday or Christmas; I had her keep it in the interim, because at the duplex I don’t have enough outlets to run a Scentsy burner.

My sweetheart has finished his puttering. Time for me to log off and go be a good wife. Later, gators!

Another wedding vignette.

You will be getting this in dibs and dabs, as Beloved waited up for me to come home from my shift at the temple, and we have much to talk about.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

So, the morning of the wedding, I woke up and did some productive puttering before it was time to leave for the chapel. I loaded stuff into the car, fired Lorelai up, and was about five blocks from the house (as in, almost onto the freeway) before I realized that my wedding gown was still on the back of the couch. I was praying, which is probably the only reason that the Spirit’s “ahem, forget anything?” got through.

I turned Lorelai around, headed back to the church, and in due time peeled out of my street clothes, put on my slip, then my thigh-high lace stockings, and the garter, and reached for my shoes.

Which were still in their box, on the couch, at home. Thankfully, Lark and her boyfriend and Middlest-as-navigator were all willing and able to drive the 4-5 miles back to the house to fetch them.

The really cool thing is that I was not in the least upset, just a little sheepish, and grateful for my family.

I will leave you with the thought that you should cast your memories back to the final episode of M.A.S.H., which is what Beloved said I should do, in a conversation about a week or ten days before the wedding.

Radio silence.

Ms. Tola thinks it’s deafening. Hey, y’all, canoodling takes a lot of energy that might otherwise be spent typing. He’s cutting into my knitting time as well. (He just pointed out that I don’t seem to be objecting a lot.) Plus, there was no internet connection at the cabin.

I took a lot of pictures of the interior of the cabin, which was charming. We had a wood stove, a creatively painted bathroom floor (sponge painting and stamping and free-hand water lilies). The outside was pretty cool as well, with a dock that meandered out into the bayou, tons of cypress stumps and Spanish moss.

On walking back to the cabin and observing all the cypress stumps, I told Beloved, “Maybe it’s just me, but those seem seriously ph_ll_c”. He cracked up. It was fairly indicative of the weekend. My inner gypsy had a field day.

He posted a link to Brad Paisley’s song “Ticks” and commented that both of us were certifiably tick-free.

Oh, wait, you probably want to hear about the wedding. There will be plenty of pictures, both here and on Facebook, once his firstborn gets them developed and/or sorted out. (Probably 2-3 weeks, as they still haven’t closed on their house.) Secondborn took a bunch as well, and lots of friends snapped candid shots after we moved back into the cultural hall for cake and punch and general insanity. There were brief appearances by his Green Bay Packers cap.

He asked me a couple of days before the wedding if I remembered the final episode of “MASH”. I did. He told me that he just wanted to give me a heads-up, that he was going for something like unto the kiss Hawkeye gave HotLips. Which he did, right after the “I do’s,” to thunderous applause, especially after I started tapping him on the back of his right shoulder with the forefinger of my left hand, as in “Please let me up for air.”

One of his sons says that Bishop was starting to get a little fidgety.

Good night, all. I have work in the morning, and he has chemo (a new drug), and he is cleaning off the bed from our evening spent unwrapping gifts and entering the information on Excel. I suspect he might have a different sort of unwrapping in mind...

He says I figure things out pretty well.

Tuesday. Cake. Laundry. Fried taters.

I got all of my to-dos, to-done before leaving the office. Tomorrow is a me day. Fun and games at the dentist, followed by getting stuff waxed at the spa where my hair magician used to work. Or maybe still does; she has a new baby, so I’m not sure what her days look like now.

Blogging from Beloved’s, where the second load of laundry is in the dryer, perhaps an hour later than it should have been, because Ms. Twitterpated forgot to push the button to make the dryer go round and round.

I will be taking frozen cake over to Secondborn’s as soon as the laundry is done. I would like to stay later, but Beloved’s brother is here, and he is almost as much fun to talk to as Beloved is to kiss. Which is saying something.

Dinner tonight was two eggs, over easy and seasoned to perfection, a modest first portion of home fried potatoes, and a piggy second portion, plus one cautious experiment: a pork sausage, which thus far has not attacked my ankles.

Laundry is about done. Frozen cake is about to come out of the freezer and head for Fort Worth. Four dolls have made the move over here, so I can toss boxes around in the living room. I packed three boxes before breakfast.

Four days. Pritnear only three days.

Wonderful, but not entirely fair.

I thought I would be a good fiancée and spend a little time working on Beloved’s neck and shoulders while he was sitting in his easy chair, waiting for us to invade his mother’s storage unit in search of something she needed for the upcoming nuptials. I figured that his neck would be as tight and tense as mine. It is not. He has good muscle tone, (there is nothing soft about that man, other than his heart) and his neck feels like neck, and his traps feel like traps, and his shoulders feel like shoulders. The man is relaxed!

Boggles. The. Mind. Because we know that you could hang a good-sized suspension bridge from each of my trapezius muscles and support morning rush hour quite well, and I probably wouldn’t even notice.

He is confident that once we are married, I will relax significantly (get your minds out of the gutter). I carry my kids on these shoulders. I carry my grandkids on these shoulders. I carry my church responsibilities on these shoulders. Yes, I share the load with Heaven, but nevertheless, pretty much anything that passes through my mind spends at least some time on my shoulders.

It will be nice to share that, or give a good chunk of it up entirely.

When I arrived at my desk this morning, there was a lovely bag waiting for me, a present for us from two of my co-workers. I did take pictures, but my home computer is still incommunicado, so you will have to wait. Inside were items as colorful as they are useful.

Film at 11. (I won’t say which day.)

Five days. Somebody asked him at church yesterday if he were starting to count the hours. For fun last night, in between smooches, we did a little mental math. Today, of course, it is less. As I post this, we are looking at a smidgen under 113 hours.

Three more days of the long commute. He thinks we can find something vastly more interesting to do with that time. I’m inclined to believe him.

Those who can’t, teach ;)

With apologies to my friends who are excellent teachers. I taught Relief Society this morning in Beloved’s ward. Lesson prep kept me out of the pool halls all week, and my mind more or less off the honeymoon, and I learned things, and I assigned reading and got some great participation.

I do like teaching. I love the Church. I love the gospel upon which it is founded. I love the doctrines of the Restoration, and I am uncharacteristically jazzed about the lesson manual this year. This is not to diss any previous manuals. I am just really jazzed about this one.

Most of the brethren who lead the Church today were successful in earthly terms before being called to set aside their nets and go fish for men. I respect them enormously, and while I’m smart enough to know that they did not progress from ease to ease, it is difficult to think of them as having dealt with poverty, starvation, rebellious children, unemployment, debt, or other issues that the rest of us ordinary mortals have to deal with on a daily basis.

George Albert Smith, who died the year before I was born, had ill health much of his life, became visually impaired as a young adult, grew up in poverty and was not financially successful. Nevertheless, he developed character traits more valuable than a fat 401K while dealing with the ordinary stuff of life. This is a man I can relate to, and I am looking forward to getting to know him better.

I felt the Spirit every time I picked up the manual to study the lesson material. I felt the Spirit while I was teaching.

I learned this weekend that the Brethren have nixed the traditional wedding music in our chapels. So, no "here comes the bride" or the customary recessional. I have an email in to my bishop for our musical Plan B. I am not upset in the least about this, because the really important event will take place when Beloved and I are sealed in the temple once we are given clearance.

Saturday morning is about the legalities and about rejoicing with our friends and family who might otherwise not be able to participate. Saturday night is about the perks of marriage. About which I am trying not to think too much, because while blushing is very good for my complexion, it does tend to wear on one.

After church, I popped into the clerk’s office to hug Beloved and to introduce my BFFE from my childbearing years. As I left, I told him that I would let myself in, and when he got home he would find me unconscious on top of his bed, as opposed to next weekend, when he would find me unconscious in his bed. At which point he responded that he very much hoped I would not be unconscious when that time comes.

He is planning a little mischief for shortly after the ceremony. I am planning to enjoy it.

Six days, unless he’s the one doing the counting.

Bring on the weekend!

I have wedding shower the second this evening, followed by snuggling with Beloved in his well-chaperoned living room, and then the long, groggy drive home to my own chaste boudoir, where visions of something more rowdy than sugarplums are likely to clutter my dreams.

We are eight days out, and the hormones are spiking, but thus far still no Bridezilla episodes.

There is nothing on my calendar for tomorrow. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I do plan on trucking over to the optical shop and having them put new pads on my new specs, because the factory-issue ones are digging to China on the left side of my nose, and I’d like for everything to heal up before the big day.

Other than that, I foresee a little cooking, a lot of packing, and oh please, more knitting than I have seen since Tuesday night.

My checkbook is balanced. Me? not so much. My back is tight, my hip is aching, the twinge in my knee has returned, and I think it is pure and simple repression, which will continue unabated until shortly after we arrive at the cabin next weekend.

Catching a bit of a break.

In the old days, when a client gave us a disc with photos or a video, it was a simple matter to save it to the file. We got one recently with about three dozen photos on it. This time around, I had to convert each image to a PDF and save it to my desktop. Then I combined the images according to topic and saved those combinations. Then I converted three videos to zip files and saved them. Then I started importing them into the new system. And, finally, I dragged and dropped each item on my desktop into the recycle bin. All told, perhaps 45 minutes to do what would have taken me 45 seconds to do, before. On the other hand, I am now a whole lot faster at it than I was when I opened that disc.

In other news, Beloved’s platelet count was low, so no chemo this week. That means he gets to drink cold beverages until his next chemo in two weeks, because the sensitivity from the last round of chemo is wearing off.

We have a winner in the cake trials! It would seem that I was truly inspired when I suggested combining a spice cake mix with a carrot cake mix. We got height, we got great texture, and we got amazing flavor. [And I’ve got the last slice in my fridge at home. Hey, he wanted it out of his house. I do try to be obliging!] My slice of cake was dinner last night. I finished my bison burger at lunch today.

I had a really good, productive day at work today. It is great to feel as if I know what I’m doing, once more.

Fun with food and friends

We had lunch at Screen Door, a foo-foo place in Big D’s Arts District. I had a bison burger with feta. Yes, I know that the food analysis back in September said “no beef”, but strictly speaking, it wasn’t. And when I went to the churrascaria with Brother Sushi on Monday night, I ate sirloin, chicken breast (carefully picking off the bacon but enjoying the flavor it gave my chicken), a couple bites of pork tenderloin, with no discernible reaction. So I concur with Beloved that a recheck by a conventional medical practitioner is in order (it was on my honey-do list, anyway), and I will take care of getting a referral in the next few weeks. Or months, depending upon how busy married life keeps me.

Work is going suspiciously well. While I am not up to my former speed, I am getting there.

And now I am heading to Beloved’s. Today is my future mother-in-love’s 82nd birthday, and I have a B&N gift card in her name. Trying to score some serious good d-i-l points there. We will have cake at 6:00, and then I will accompany them to church, where his second grandson has Pinewood Derby tonight.

As I gave birth to five daughters, I know nada about said activity, so this will be considerably out of the box for me, and I am looking forward to it. After that, we are going to do something about dinner. At which point I might actually be hungry again. I am still full from lunch, and that was half of my burger, five hours ago.

Life at the moment is even more delicious than usual.

In which your intrepid heroine has adventures.

The first one, entirely positive, involved procuring our marriage license.

We took his firstborn son’s advice and went to a satellite county office, where the lines were shorter and the employees were civil. (As befits civil servants. A soupçon of bureaucratic humor, if you will.)

That burned an hour and forty-five minutes of PT.

When I got to work, we discovered that the bus/train passes which are needed tomorrow morning, were not here. The person who was supposed to pick them up last week, drove in all week, had the check to purchase the tickets with her, and was off work today. (She was under the impression that because the passes expire tomorrow, she could pick up the new ones when she came into work; unfortunately, they expire at 3:00a.m.)

So I got to take a company car, drive within a couple of miles of Beloved’s house, pick up the check, bring back the company car, bump another company car while trying to park The Behemoth (fill out an intra-office accident report), walk the check over to the DART station and come back with the passes, which I then distributed.

And then I went to lunch, about 45 minutes later than my usual late lunch. It has made for an extremely short afternoon.

In a few days, this will be funny. Thankfully, the office manager laughed (a little) when I told her I’d hit one of our other pool cars.

So, I have had an extra hour of driving today, and a brisk walk in brisk weather, and fresh air and sunshine and rosy cheeks, and people get to ride the buses and trains tomorrow, and other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, I have very little to show for this day.

I told Beloved that I wish we were already married, because this is one of those days where, (if I were still a drinking woman, there would be some serious elbow-bending once I got home,) an evening of mommy-and-daddy would do wonders for my frazzled nerves.

Eleven days. And now goodnight, because I have an appointment with NailDude to fix the thumbnail which I broke getting into Lorelai on Saturday, or maybe Sunday morning (I forget), and the little finger nail which is about to fly off and go into orbit.

Ms. Ravelled, quietly falling apart here in BigD. Over, and out.

(Bridal shower the first, tomorrow at lunch, tee hee!)

Seriously cutting into my knitting time.

On the other hand, the hugging, et al, is very nice. I had a really good day yesterday, working on wedding stuff. I found and installed new buttons on the wedding dress. I finished, really and truly stick in a fork in me I’m done finished, the corsages. I scored a dozen red pseudo-velvet bows at Michael’s on Christmas closeout at 59 cents apiece, as opposed to the box of pre-made wedding bows (white) for $49.99. Feeling a little smug about that.

Friday night I picked up the cake tower. The box was open. I put it in Lorelai’s trunk and headed to Lane Bryant, where I bought four new bras (one comfy but colorful, three racy) and five pairs of coordinating panties [reminds me of the old joke: six beautiful chorus girls, five beautiful costumes]. All of which are divvied up into gallon Ziploc bags and stowed in the honeymoon bag.

From thence to downtown BigD, armed with my driving directions. Which didn’t work. I stopped at the office, changed into a dress and confirmed directions with the security dude, and tried again. No such luck. I drove around for about half an hour, as it was getting darker and darker, and the neighborhood was getting scarier and scarier, and I was getting hungry and tired and more frustrated and finally just plain scared. So I called Beloved and headed to his house, where he held me until I stopped twitching.

Then we took the cake tower out of the box and started to play with putting it together, which is when we discovered that seven pieces were missing and it had been used: telltale green smear of icing on one of the support pieces, and more green icing on the assembly sheet. I took it back yesterday and got a refund and another 50% off coupon, which I will use tomorrow at another location. (I had bought the only box that store had.)

Dinner last night was baked potatoes, baked cod, his veggie sautee, and a small bowl of posole which the neighbors had brought over. Hominy is a sad thing to do to a perfectly good kernel of corn, but posole goes a long way toward redeeming it. Dessert was a sliver each of two test cakes when we came home from the dance. These would be contenders 3 and 4 for our wedding cake. The spice cake rose wonderfully and tastes better-than-OK. The carrot cake did not rise well, but the flavor is terrific. Tomorrow he is going to combine a box of each and see if we get the height of the spice cake and the flavor and moisture of the carrot cake. If so, that will be the wedding cake. And we have a friend in his ward who used to bake cakes, so she can loan us her cake leveler and a 12” pan.

I have bought the long tablecloths for the banquet tables, also the forks and the napkins, and priced out the rest of the stuff we need. I have transferred the information from our eVites into a spreadsheet, and I need to go into FB and pull that information as well, and then have Beloved add to it from the responses he has received.

He is snoozing quietly on the bed (they look so innocent when they are asleep). I am getting my internet fix.

What to say about the dance last night. The decorations were lovely: Christmas trees of varying heights, grouped in twos and threes, festooned only with white fairy lights. The food was good as well, a nice mixture of healthy and festive. I found several things that I could eat with a clear conscience. The music? Well, the younger generation seemed to enjoy it. We left about 9:40, in part because we were both tired, and also because the music was too loud and we had already hugged all or most of our friends.

Came back here, tried the cakes, visited quietly until it was midnight, then he kissed me, and I drove home. Two major wrecks on LBJ between one exit and the next, and I think a total of four during the course of the evening. I barely, barely made it home awake, falling into bed about 1:30 and getting approximately five hours of sleep. I tried to catch a catnap after church while Beloved was dealing with the tithing at church, but no such luck.

I am going to have to catch a few winks before I try to drive home again tonight.

Tomorrow night I am going to eat churrascaria with Brother Sushi, retrieve my spare key from Secondborn, and pack as many boxes as humanly possible between sunup and bedtime. I’ve already alerted the neighbors that there will be unusual cars and unusual activity chez moi for the next several weeks, and why.

And oh? I volunteered to teach Relief Society next Sunday. That will keep my mind on scriptures instead of honeymoon, but I’ve gotta tell you, a sixteen year old has nothing on me in terms of the-sap-is-rising.

So glad that I only have 13 days (almost, only 12) of this crazy commute, and then I can settle in chez Beloved. We are getting our license on Tuesday morning.

I am the poster child for crazy-tired. And I am heading out to the kitchen for more water, and thence to the AARP website, because the Sudoku is calling my name.