This is where we were on Wednesday night.

The ugly old commode, out on the street.

The nekkid (this is Texas; that's a word) shower stall, waiting for redemption.

The wallboard torn up, behind where the new commode will go.

It looks a whole lot better than that now, but my phone is in the charger, and I'm trying to get back to sleep. I lay down for maybe half an hour, and my right calf was twitching, and my right neck was thinking about a charley horse, and I kept drifting into half-dreams where people were holding puppies that might have been possums. So I decided it was better to get up, fix myself a snack, and wait for some semblance of normal to roll around.

I got bushwhacked by a first cousin twice removed. There are now 3101 people on my family tree, and over 12,000 hints, and the Millenium, when communication between Them and Us is supposedly going to be easier, cannot come a moment too soon. This was one of the daughters of my great grandmother Sarah's brother Jacob. I think if she were still mortal, she would be extremely internet savvy, because she figured out a way to hijack a records notification in my email that linked to someone on my surname line. There are so many people, and so many records for them, that I can't work on them more than a couple of hours without getting physically wiped out. The good news is, several other somebodies are working these lines, and some of the work has been done, and some of it is reserved, and some is released to the general temple files.

I finally figured something out yesterday afternoon. When looking at family tree matches, it shows how many records are attached. And if I have more records attached to my person than most of the others do on their trees, I mostly only need to look at the trees with more records than I have, to see what's missing and if it's relevant. It's been fun to link to the related Family Search profile and be able to update others' research with records and more details.

I'm yawning again. Hoping that this time I can go to bed and stay there until daylight.

Today I will be emptying and sorting all (or some) of the boxes that Fourthborn and I pulled out of the middle bedroom on Saturday. The dead people are just going to have to wait their turn, because my handyman couple will be back tomorrow (Tuesday) morning to finish up (!!!!!) the guest loo.

Sorry: a little distracted here.

Haven't been sleeping well. Not entirely sure why. Wish it would stop.

Bought a new pillow when I was out and about yesterday, in hopes that it would do the trick. One night isn't much of a test. I'll get back to you. If I remember.

Work's been going well.

The first blue/green baby sock is done and the ends woven in. Second sock has been cast on, messed up in the first round, frogged, and cast on again.

My bed is piled high with stuff that I need to find a place for in the next half hour. The remodeling of the master loo has commenced. The old commode is out on the curb. The icky shower paneling is gone, as is much of the wallboard, preparatory to the wainscoting going in. The new shower surround is in its box, and leaning against one of the trees in my dining room. My dolls are hiding out in my sweater drawers. The tree frog shower curtain is draped across the foot of my bed.

My NOAA (weather alert) radio came in today's mail, and I just finished a run for more batteries so I can set it up properly. There's a possibility of tornadoes tomorrow afternoon or evening.

I haven't quilted in two days, as that time has been spent clearing a path for my remodeling crew. I did more of that last night after Knit Night and the last little bit this morning before work. My body is screaming for sleep. Therefore, I am going to shut this down and I guess move the various piles out here in the living room for the meantime. And maybe I will be horizontal and unconscious before 10:30.

Weird(ish) day

I slept well. I ate sensibly. And still I fought sleep much of the day. Nevertheless, I managed to stay productive, and I made progress on the current baby sock at Knit Night and while waiting outside the thrift shop afterward while Fourthborn shopped for boots for her Scarborough Faire costume. She scored a really sweet pair of black ankle boots and some dressy flip-flops. She paid for them with some of her tip money from drawing on Free Comic Book Day earlier this month.

The kid is good. What can I say.

I finished the first pair of baby socks knitted in one-row spirals from two compatible remnants of previous projects. (I cast on half of the stitches with the first color, the second half with the other, and worked the heel flaps in the lighter yarn.) Those were more or less the color of sherbet. I am currently using a muddy green and a smoky blue. The overall effect is dusk in a rainforest, with the occasional splotch of powder blue or acid green. It's almost hypnotic to watch the colors play together. And I feel both clever and frugal, as none of this lovely handpainted yarn will be going to waste.

That's all I've got for you today. My body is tired but not in pain. My eyes are heavy. I've taken my meds and am going to grab a small handful of chocolate covered ginger on the way to bed. Night, y'all.

Rather a wild week.

At Knit Night a week ago Tuesday, my acquired brother T was showing me a pattern on his phone, and as he leaned forward, he put his hand lightly on my knee. At which point my brain went into lockdown. We had a lovely extended conversation via text over the next day and a half. I knew he wasn't making a move. He knew I knew he wasn't making a move. It was an act of compassion, and it shook things loose.

The hardest thing about being single, before I married Beloved and since his passing, has been the general lack of touch. I am a high touch person living a low touch life. It would be simpler if I liked pets, but I don't.

I think it will be easier in some ways when Middlest is here. That mother-child connection is clear and pure and holy. It's a small house. We are likely to bump into one another.

But as for last Tuesday night, Pandora conspired against me on the drive home, and I was able to cry for the first time in weeks. Not a lot, maybe not more than fifteen or twenty seconds, but it helped.

So if you were wondering at my cryptic posts on FB about Brain and Body and Spirit bickering amongst themselves, now you have another piece of the puzzle. I'll likely be pondering it for some time to come.

In other news, I had my quarterly diabetes check day before yesterday, and my regular doctor had taken a couple of days off, so I saw one who has treated me for bronchial yuck at the night clinic. He listened to my constellation of symptoms and agreed that the anti-cholesterol medicine was the most likely suspect and yes, I should stop taking it. Symptoms: joint pain, weak and achy muscles, blurred vision, ravenous appetite, weight gain, brain fog, fitful sleep. I have no idea if it was doing nice things for my cholesterol, but it was definitely impinging upon my quality of life.

In the two days I have not taken it, the aching in my hip and knees is almost gone. It is easier to rise from the commode. My appetite is returning to normal. I slept seven hours night before last, and six and a half hours last night (less, because I was mucking out my studio and lost track of time).

I worked for an hour on cleaning my studio last night, and another half hour tonight. My stacking bins have gone to a good home. I have a bag and a half ready to go to the thrift store. I found my baby shoes. I reshelved some books and collected all of my shipping boxes into one place.

Logic would suggest that I focus on clearing out the middle bedroom so that Middlest will have a place to sleep. But my heart tells me to declutter my studio so that I can use it for my sewing and crafting, and thus declutter the dining room.

I've had two stellar days at work. My focus and retention are returning (it was getting a little scary).

I have so much more to say, but my body is screaming for sleep, and I'm going to honor that.

Knitlandia: A Knitter Sees the World

I've tried (twice) to add that to my list of things-read, to no avail. Will try again when I'm more awake. It's delightful. Quite possibly even if you are not a knitter.

I picked up a novel while at Costco last night and am two chapters in. Thus far, no language issues, even if it is a New York Times best-seller. I'm always surprised to like something on that list, as my standards of what makes a book "good" are significantly different from the world's.

I like honorable people solving problems in an honorable way. And villains getting their comeuppance. And clean language. And a strong female protagonist doesn't hurt. What I love best about Drew Barrymore's take on Cinderella is that she doesn't just sit around waiting to be rescued. Unlike the doomed heroine of Wuthering Heights, she doesn't create problems; she solves them. Not a big fan of Catherine and Heathcliff. Brats, the both of them. Not a big fan of Miz Scarlett, either. She finishes the novel as selfish, clueless, and unredeemed as when she began. Bitter, not better.

I'd write more, but I'm supposed to be getting ready for work. And I really do like my job.

Better.

Email exchanges throughout yesterday with my friend who owns the much-procrastinated quilt. A dash through Trader Joe's. 59-cent party tacos from Bueno, and several chapters in Clara Parkes' Knitlandia. I slept like a rock until a little after 3:00am, awoke with a vaguely unhappy stomach, sent down a toasted English muffin and a few sips of milk, and went right back to sleep.

Dreamed that Beloved and I were working on the house. I walked out into the garage, and he had cleared it entirely. Gleaming bare floor all the way to the garage door in front, and impeccably organized shelves. He was planning on a massive baking project, and he had needed something that was out in the garage.

Tonight I am planning to attend a BYU Management Society fireside with Brad Wilcox. But in order for that to happen, I need to get off the computer, put on my "know what I'm doing, I do" clothing, and scoot out the door.

I am hopeful that by the time I get to work, my bank will have fixed its technical issues, so I may double-check that my paycheck is in there and pay my tithing. Very frustrating to log on and be told that there was a problem with my log-on name and/or password. I even rebooted my computer. After the third try, I X'd out of the page and found their contact page, which had an OOPS, SORRY, WE'RE WORKING ON IT message.

Work. Yeah. I'm going, I'm going!

Who ate that week?

I finished the last small element of The Albatross tonight and have messaged its owner for feedback on how she'd prefer that I complete it. This is a king size quilt that I have been working on (or, mostly, not-working-on) for nearly a quarter of my life. All thirty-six blocks are done. But there's a spot along one edge where the backing doesn't quite meet the front, and I need to know if she wants me to patch the back or trim the quilt by half an inch all the way around.

I worked on it fairly steadily at first, interrupted by Secondborn’s wedding, then Firstborn’s, and then four of the eight CPCU courses, until late 2003, when Firstborn led me into Mary Kay. The children's father had been out of work for awhile (he was out of work for over a year, and thus we got no child support).

Selling makeup provided a faster source of income while also eating up huge chunks of time, during which I might otherwise have been finishing the quilt. And then LittleBit hit high school, and we were suddenly busier than I had been with four children still at home.

She graduated in 2008, I moved to Fort Worth a week later, and I rode the train to and from work in Dallas until Beloved came into my life. It's reasonably easy to knit on a train. Not so easy to lug a king size quilt onto the train and keep it from getting stepped on. It didn't help when I was called to be the RS president in my ward.

Every time I saw her quilt folded up and waiting patiently in my studio, both in Fort Worth and since I moved here, I reminded myself that I needed to finish it. At the first of this year, I found my thimble and the two spools of black quilting thread. I was dismayed to see that the blocks were only a little over halfway done. I've chipped away at them, some days only five or ten minutes, but something on it every day of the week but Sunday.

I cannot find the French bias binding that I carefully assembled and pressed, a decade and a half ago. I know that I didn't throw it away. But I cannot for the life of me remember which box or tub it might be in.

So I'll need to buy a yard of black patterned fabric and make more binding. My goal is to have the borders quilted and the quilt bound off and handed over before I leave to get Middlest. That gives me approximately a month and a half. I'm also returning the commission fee, with interest, because hello? For someone who used to be a quilting professional, not professional at all. I just checked her FB profile, and she's widowed, like me. This was supposed to be a non-surprise quilt for her husband, who was colorblind but could see these colors.

Oh bleep.

If you will all excuse me, I'm going to go beat myself up and go to bed.

Mostly calm and wonderful here.

With a side order of mild panic when I thought I'd lost the files I'd scanned after shredding the originals. So I did a test scan and found the folder. Whew! Also, sheesh!

Monday I dropped off the rectangular frame to have a mirror cut and glued in. Then I made a beeline for Guitar Center and spent the better part of an hour trying out their electric pianos. I found one I like and several that thrilled me not. I made notes in Evernote. I'm not ready to buy, but I am getting itchy.

I am on the home stretch with The Albatross. One more fiddly section, and then some fairly straightforward stuff, and I might be done before Labor Day. One can hope.

Yesterday I got to watch two of our attorneys in action. The downside is that between a long lunch and leaving two hours early on Monday, plus yesterday afternoon, I lost almost one full day of working time. When I got back to the office at a quarter to five, there were 65 emails waiting for me. So while I was sluicing off this morning, I was also praying like crazy, and Heaven came through as usual. Notwithstanding another hour lost for mandatory training in preparation for mandatory records management, I got the mail wrangled and my inbox whipped into shape.

Tomorrow is another long lunch, this one for Administrative Professionals Day. My guys are taking me to lunch somewhere, no idea where as of now. Last year it was the restaurant at Neiman Marcus.

I'm yawning. So I'll do the sensible thing and make myself a mango yogurt smoothie in lieu of a third chocolate chip cookie. And then I'll work on The Albatross for a bit, pick up the dropped stitches on my church knitting, and call it a night.

More from the Main Street Arts Festival

There was another artist who did amazing needle-felted landscapes inlaid into blocks or chunks of wood. My favorites were the ones felted onto weaving shuttles.

A man who does portraits composed of word collages. The print I liked best, of a couple reading together on a couch, surrounded by books, is not on the website.

A woman who reverse-paints on glass, just a riot of colors.

And one who had ceramic coasters, nightlight covers, and sculptures like piano keys, but Fourthborn reminded me that I have a plethora of coasters. Le sigh… Note: that gorgeous mural at the Park and Ride on I-30 just east of Belt Line? Her work.

Two from the Fab Four

I'm picking up Fourthborn after church, and we're heading to Firstborn's. Hilarity, and brownies will ensue. I told them, I don't want cake. I don't want cupcakes. I want cheesecake. Or brownies.

And next year I want a huge (inexpensive) party.

And, briefly, he was there.

Fourthborn and I went to the Main Street Arts Festival in Fort Worth after working on the house today. I was leafing through prints in one booth when one knocked the breath out of me. Two cranes silhouetted against a full moon, over water, the moon’s reflection forming a heart.

I murmured to Fourthborn, “Aren’t cranes symbolic of eternal love?” And as she quietly replied, “Yes,” Beloved’s spirit was there. Tears welled up as I said, “He’s here.” Fourthborn gently scratched my back as the tenderness washed over me.

“Foreverglades” by Lisa Loudermilk, an artist from Austin, TX

Yes, it followed me home. As did one similar to this, but smaller, in blues, and unframed (i.e., affordable).

I'll post links to the other artists I liked, some other time. It's 9:00pm, and I need a light dinner, and then I'm going to bed.

Busy. And maybe a little crazy.

Mostly terrific day at work. By the end of the day I had about had it with SemperFi, who was balking at a new bureaucratic procedure. If Bennigan's still existed in its old format, dinner would have been Death by Chocolate. But the one remaining Bennigan's within driving distance (assuming that it's still open since the last time I was in) has reinvented Death by Chocolate as an adult beverage, and that was not an option for Ms. Ravelled.

As it was, I lugged home everything I'd taken to work and went back out to look for a shelf/ish/like something to go between where the wainscoting will top out and where the mirror will go. World Market. No luck. Pier One. No luck. Hobby Lobby. No luck. By which time I was starving, so I fired up Waze and headed to Saltgrass Steakhouse for another of those delicious smothered sirloins. Mine was more medium than medium rare tonight, but it was still tasty and tender. I brought home half of it and more than half of my baked sweet potato for tomorrow's lunch.

And now I'm going to take my meds and set the timer for 15 to 20 minutes and stitch. I can't go to bed right away without risking a visit from the Indigestion Fairy, and I just got myself back into my usual good mood.

There are days when retirement is the loveliest goal in my future. Today was one of them. With a side of order of "let's hang all the lawyers." Tomorrow is just about guaranteed to be better. It's Friday. It's payday. There's a doll meet with Fourthborn at PieFive. And we'll make more progress on the house tomorrow night and Saturday.

Before

This is what the master bath has looked like (structurally, at least) since I moved in four years ago. The amount and category of clutter has varied from time to time.

The walls of the shower stall are some sort of paneling, and Beloved told me that he'd erred in not taking them farther down the wall when he put this in. As you can see, mold and who knows what are there and need to be gone.

The sink obviously needs to be replaced. Yesterday I bought a one-piece vanity top in a warm white, and a sidesplash to go along with it. They will hold an oil-rubbed bronze faucet and handles. The old vanity is sound, and will stay.

The little red shelf, toothbrush holder, and medicine cabinet will go. The dated and boring beige tile is also going. It will be replaced by beadboard paneling on that wall and on the window wall facing it, and will be painted creamy white to match the trim throughout the house. The large mirror that I got from Wes and Sarah when they moved, will go up on that wall, unless I decide to spring for the mirror-trimmed one at Pier One, as it is still available (on sale!!! which presumably means on closeout) at the Garland store and may come home with me tomorrow after work. I'll have to ponder that and take my swatches with me.

The new shower stall will include a new shower pan, a place to sit, no tile or grout, and improved grab rails. All part of my plan to age in place. And there will be a place to plug in my blow dryer for those rare times when I feel impressed to use it.

I also trekked to Fort Worth to buy the vessel sink for the upgrade to the guest loo, which will not happen until next year, when I get that tax refund and bonus.

I am using the same husband/wife handyman couple who did my friend Sandy's bathroom remodel. If I had known (A) what I wanted in a remodel and (B) how reasonable the change is going to be, I might have done this a couple of years ago. But Fourthborn and I have been having so much fun working on the house, and up to this point we've been able to do everything that needed to be done. If I'm as pleased with the work as I suspect I will be, I'll be having these two back to upgrade the guest loo and help us finish out the kitchen.

They will probably start in two weeks, and it should take about a week. So in a month or so, I will have more pictures for you.

Song of the sleep-deprived

I got less than six hours of sleep last night. My knitting was exciting, but not so much as to account for that. I got through this day by grit and prayer. It was not a bad day, and I accomplished a lot, and because I was able to help a friend who had been off for several days (by calendaring trial dates and a scheduling order), I stayed productively active for most of my workday.

I cancelled plans with a girlfriend for tonight. Picked up Bueno on the drive home, ate that, washed my hands, and worked on The Albatross for a little over an hour while doing a load of darks. Knitted a couple of rounds on the stealth project for Christmas. Listened to classical music. Finished another chapter in the library book on the seven basic plots. Updated my spreadsheets and transferred money from my checking account to my savings account to cover the tank of gas I put in the Tardis.

It is weird to look at my balance sheet and see that I have more money in savings that I have saved, personally, than at any time before.

I haven't heard back from the guy who upcycles furniture. I'll have to give him another call tomorrow, assuming that I still remember in the morning. I would really like to have that church pew gone on Saturday.

In other happy news, my mortgage payment on Monday was the new, lesser amount, reflecting the change in my escrow payment. I wasn't expecting that to happen until next month.

Going to bed now. Hoping for better sleep tonight.

Saturday is going to be wild

Taking the Tardis in for safety inspection, including fixing the hyperactive left turn signal. Bulb out in the left rear, for about a week now. Sounds as if someone had poured cappuccino into the carburetor. And fixing the brake light that's part of the camper shell. And checking the brakes (I've had a couple of hard stops in the past few weeks). And checking the alignment.

The first handyman will also be coming over to give me an estimate, once I get home from the mechanic's.

And I've put a call in to the guy from whom I bought the console table which serves as my computer desk, and the corner chair, because his ears perked up last fall when I asked if he might be interested in the church pew that used to live in my dining room. I hope to hear back from him in the next day or so.

Plus the usual laundry, and we're hoping that the weather will be perfect to start mucking out the garage so that we can move a few items out there preparatory to ripping up the carpet in the middle bedroom and laying down vinyl plank flooring.

And Fourthborn has one or two doors left to paint, but mostly we will be attempting to clear the decks to turn the middle bedroom into, well, a bedroom.

I've just finished another installment of The Albatross and am giving my hands a rest from that. Will knit a smidgen on a stealth project for Christmas, but mostly I want to work on Middlest's doll's sweater sleeve, now that I have more color options. I'd like to get a pattern started so I'll know which balls of yarn to throw into my knitting bag for Knit Night.

Made some progress on the shredding pile last night. And the Sunday sessions of General Conference were amazing. But the cherry on the top was a quick visit from some friends, because I had posted a chinstrap for a CPAP on the ward's RS Facebook page, and they thought it might work for the husband. More stuff productively re-homed, huzzah! And he shared a little story with me. I mentioned how thankful I was that they had been on Team Me from the moment they found out that Beloved was dating me, and the husband said that in his conversations with Beloved when they went fishing, it was only ever me.

So now I want to know when Beloved knew that he was in love with me and wanted to marry me, even if he didn't have enough medical information (i.e., a good-enough prognosis) for him to think it fair to ask me. It's not an answer that's crucial to my eternal salvation, but I am curious.

And on that happy note, I'm going to log off and go play with yarn.

Oh dudes and dudettes, I am such a tired Ms. Ravelled

General Conference was splendid. The music was perfect. The talks were perfect. I got some answers and/or spiritual nudges. I worked on the stealth Christmas project. And worked on the Fair Isle sweater for Middlest's Avery between and after the sessions.

Ran to the store in the evening for some fresh fruit. Also splurged on a copy of HGTV magazine, which was $3.98, fun, and probably won't be coming home with me again.

I've done some scanning and shredding today. I've eaten reasonably intelligently. I was so emotionally wrung-out after this morning's Conference session that I had to set the alarm and take a short nap. During which I was doing obscure things with maps. I don't know. It made sense during the dream.

My head kind of exploded this weekend. At first I thought it was the spinning oils, but after checking the pollen count I think it's more likely that all of the trees and grasses in North Texas are having their way with my sinuses. I was amused to realize that my nose more or less behaved itself during all four of the Conference sessions that I watched. And it's been relatively calm this evening.

The veil was very thin today. I'm OK, but I am tired. Night, y'all.

Budgets and blessings

Around the time I wake up tomorrow, my bonus will hit my checking account.  I have had all kinds of wild and crazy fantasies about what to do with the surplus. I did splurge on Tuesday night after I got home from Knit Night, and I ordered a bunch of light-toned laceweight from WEBS. They kept upping the discount, so I kept piling balls and skeins into my basket. I ended up with a 20% discount on most of it, and one deeply discounted discontinued color, and free shipping. In theory, that box will arrive at the office tomorrow.

I plugged numbers into my balance sheet and was pleasantly surprised. My 401K did amazingly well last month, my TI stock is up, and the balances on my mortgage and line of credit are dropping steadily. I'm still waiting to take bids on redoing the master bathroom. I think the first one will happen between Conference sessions on Saturday. And while I would love to dash into the building surplus store after work tomorrow and pick up one or both of the vessel sinks, I've decided (for now) that I will be happier if I repay what I've taken from one savings account or another since the first of the year. The money will be there if and when I need it.

Who is this grownup, and what has she done with Ms. Ravelled?

I have a credit card now, with a modest credit limit, for which I am thankful. I've decided that the sensible way to use it is to put a matching amount into my savings account anytime I use the card. That way I do not overspend, and when the statement arrives it's a simple matter to transfer the funds. I stay out of trouble, I have a credit card for when I travel and need to rent a car, I continue to build my credit score, and a percentage of what I charge is applied to my mortgage. No late fees, no interest charges. The crowd goes wild! (Well except for the crowd at the bank that issued my card.)

I was pleased to see from the credit report the bank ran before issuing said card, that my credit score is up 20 points from when I refinanced the house in late 2013. This will only get better as the line of credit is paid down (and possibly paid off by the end of the year) and the mortgage balance drops.

Work is going well. I did not have to send out a will type for food memo to the other legal secretaries, and we're going to be short-handed enough tomorrow (my friends off spending their bonuses) that I may pick up another attorney or two. It feels really good to be on top of my To Do's, the incoming mail, the outgoing mail, the cases that are ready to be closed, and my inbox. I couldn't do this without the prayers that get answered daily.

Have you seen the meme on Facebook of the Savior sitting next to a little boy (I think it's a Greg Olson print), with the caption, "So, what can I help you with today?" I'm grateful for the days when my socks match, and my shirt is on right side out, and I don't spill lunch on my shirt, and work flows smoothly, and I get to laugh with my coworkers. I'm grateful for time with my kids, and time to myself, and those luscious moments of flow when the project du jour or du soir is behaving nicely.

I get a lot done, most days, and I don't kid myself that it's all me.

Time to take my meds, stitch for fifteen minutes just to keep the momentum going, and call it a night.

A more Easter-ish Easter

I attended church sporadically after we moved to Boise. In Wilder, we had lived next door to an American Baptist church, and I walked over every Sunday with a nickel knotted into the corner of my handkerchief as an offering when they passed the plate. My mother had grown up around Southern Baptists and found many of their teachings too restrictive of human agency, and there were no American Baptist congregations in Boise, so she kept looking.

For a few weeks after our move, I attended a Methodist congregation that met in the chapel of a mausoleum several miles away. The adults were kind, and several of the children were little snots who went to my grade school. In less than a month, I had had enough, and I told my parents that I no longer wanted to attend.

I remained unchurched until high school, when I began to attend a Friends church to which one of my girlfriends belonged. It was not due to any great religious feeling on my part. I had a crush on one of the guys (who, this being high school, had a crush on a different friend). Again, the adults were kind and welcoming, the kids my age significantly more friendly than the ones at the prior church, but I remained unconverted. I retained enough affection for that congregation that I married FirstHubby from that church, much good it did us.

The first Christmas and Easter after my conversion and baptism were revelatory. Christmas had always been as much about the music as about the presents, so being in a place where we sang Christmas carols all month long felt like my own little piece of Heaven right here on earth. But Easter? Easter was amazing. It had always been about a new dress and hat (as long as I was attending church someplace) and eggs and chocolate. Very much the secular trappings, with zero attention to the reason why we might be celebrating. (I do not blame my parents for this in the slightest. They were two of the best, and quietest, Christians I have ever known. I was just your basic self-centered child, and I remained in that phase well into nominal adulthood.)

I was baptized in August of 1975, and I began taking Institute classes along with my college classes when school resumed in September. I was hungry for gospel knowledge, and I devoured everything I could get my hands on. So I was definitely better prepared for Christ-centered holy days than at any previous point in my life.

I’ve been in the Church for forty years now, and some Easters have been more spiritual than others. We are blessed to focus on Christ and the Atonement every Sunday: in the sacrament prayers, in the music and the talks, in the Sunday School and Relief Society or Priesthood manuals. Anyone who thinks that we LDS are not Christian, is clearly not paying attention. Still, there have been (too many) years when Easter for me was just another lovely Sabbath, with the bonus of Easter hymns.

I am now blessedly past the years when I had to divide up the color-coded M&Ms to make sure that nobody got one more than a sibling. I’m not one of those grandmothers who goes bonkers creating Easter baskets for the grandchildren. I have the freedom to study as much, or as little, as I choose without interruption.

But I had a prompting either late last year or at the very beginning of this one, that I needed to ramp up my scripture study and deepen my discipleship, and so (me being me) I made a spreadsheet, laying out the lessons for Sunday School and Relief Society. As I’ve completed the lesson for each week, I’ve marked them off by color code. I just finished reading some of the background material I found on Book of Mormon Central (an e-book by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute of Religious Studies on the culture and history of the Holy Land at the time that Lehi and his family left for their own promised land). I’m enjoying the KnowWhy tidbits, although I am seriously behind on those, as the one which led to my reading the lengthy e-book was a link from KnowWhy #6 or thereabouts, and when I checked the other night, we were up to #60.

For years, I’ve been cycling through an audible version of the Book of Mormon on my morning commute. A month or so ago, I decided to listen to the parts that would be the subject of the following Sunday’s lesson in Sunday School, and to listen over and over as often as I could before it was time to move on to the next lesson. It’s weird, but it’s working. I’m definitely being obedient in terms of class preparation, and I’m getting more insights as to personal application. It’s even begun to influence my prayers, which cannot help but be a good thing.

I’ve done the same with the last two lessons for the fourth Sunday in Relief Society, when we study and discuss a talk from General Conference.

I will also say that the veil is significantly thinner since Beloved passed on, and since I’ve resumed family history research. It’s easier to feel the Spirit, and the spirits of my loved ones. And to want to dig deeper into the scriptures or my study materials. I am grateful for a heightened appreciation for, and understanding of, the Atonement: how it’s not just for the big stuff like my personal sins, or the sins which might be committed against me and mine, but also for the spiritual equivalent of pebbles in my shoe: the recurring respiratory nonsense; the financial surprises; the bruise on my arm which is now a ghastly yellow from the second failed IV attempt two weeks ago; the slow-to-heal abrasion from my mammogram last month; the need to take not one, but two naps this weekend; the necessity for a second prescription which I am likely to be taking for the rest of my mortal life; my frustration at having more to do in a given amount of time than is possible for any mortal to accomplish without Hermione’s time turner.

You know: just life. The Atonement covers it all. I am so thankful for His willingness to be a part of the details of my messy human life. And that He shares my joy when something goes right and I’m smart enough to recognize it, as well as being there for me when things go mildly or excruciatingly wrong.

He lives, and while He lives, I’ll sing. (Hymns No. 136)

It's been a good, weird day.

Woke up to daylight, feeling rested. Ate a leisurely breakfast, then put on my grownup clothes and drove down to the building surplus store for a scouting mission.

I found three gorgeous vessel sinks, and if they are still there next weekend, I will mostly likely buy two of them. I'll stick one in my studio until there is time and budget to redo the guest loo. Right now, having two functional bathrooms is a higher priority than having both of them spiffed up. And the sink in the master bath definitely needs replacing. I took lots of pictures, and the crowd went wild on Facebook.

Came home and read for a few hours, then took a nap that woke me just as the Women's Broadcast was beginning.  I missed most of the first video, but I can catch that later online. Right now I'm just so thankful for a charged-up phone and the BYU TV app.

Made a 9:30 Bueno run and tanked the Tardis while I was at it. In my pajamas (with my bra on underneath). I'm practicing to be an eccentric old lady. How'm I doing?

At this point I am spiritually and physically fed, and I've yet to touch The Albatross, although I have researched whether Bueno is a publicly held company (it's not), and what is available to restrain cargo in the back of the Tardis.

One of the things that happened today, is that I stopped at my favorite thrift store and dropped off the standing drafting table that I traded with J after that estate sale that Fourthborn and I hit last year. The pieces have been riding around in the back of the Tardis for months. The bolts and their nuts have been rolling around on the floorboard on the passenger side. While I was rooting around, I found one of the missing 4" DP needles and diligently scrounged for the others, but I think I may have lost both of them in Lorelai, in which case they are sitting in a cube in a landfill, or surprising somebody in a junkyard.

This is the part where I step away from the computer, wash the taco dust off my hands, and give The Albatross an hour of my time, with the timer set so I don't inadvertently wander into the Sabbath. And then I will read (again) until my body says we're tired.

Oh, and I should take my medicine. Like, 45 minutes ago.

Good news, bad news, progress, and a belly laugh.

The good news is that in the next day or so I will get a nice fat reimbursement from my health care savings account. The bad news is that I have exhausted my allotment for the year, and it's not even the end of March! The worse news is that I found out, after the fact, that my HMO pays for a colonoscopy only every tenth year. So it paid for part of last week's procedure, but I will apparently be writing a check to my internist.  And another one in three years, when I go back for a recheck, since they took out five polyps.

On the other hand, it's only money, and I can always earn more of it. This is going to affect my calculations for what I will need to retire in semi-comfort, and when.

Possible good news is that I will join the Medicare crowd next year, and that may give me a few more options. Not holding my breath, but maybe it will help.

In knitting news, I am finally making progress on the sweater for Middlest's doll. I need more colors of yarn, and I just spent a happy quarter of an hour looking at Debbie Bliss Rialto Lace online. It's almost exactly the same weight as the Knit Picks Shadow that I love so much: 429 yards per 50g ball, as opposed to 440 yards per 50g hank.

And I'm making good progress on The Albatross. I look forward to working on it tomorrow, but tonight I'm just going to put everything away, take my meds, and call it a day. Work wore me out, because nearly everything was closed for Good Friday, and we weren't, and I ran out of stuff to do at a quarter to four.

The belly laugh comes from the response to my note to that General Authority's father, with whom I had worked before I married and started a family. He stated very sweetly that no, he did not remember me after 40 years, but was glad that I am still firmly in the Church. Just a very nice note from a very nice man. And my primary purpose had been to thank him for his good example.

Shutting down the popcorn stand and hoping that my cogitation follows in quick succession. I am tired of braining and adulting.