Apocasnow!

Once again, the weather forecast is dire.  Rather unusually, the library will be closed!  A whole day to enjoy... or dread the next, since my car still hasn't magically changed into a snow plow.  Well, I suppose my exercise tomorrow will be several short sessions of snow shoveling.  I have discovered, I certainly can shovel snow, I'm quite good once I get all bundled up, but very quickly I'm breathing hard and dripping with sweat under my coat.  So I go inside, un-bundle, and rest for about an hour before going back out for another furious session.

It's so funny, right now I've settled into the Awesome Soft Blue Chair, I have my feet up on the Incredibly Useful Storage Ottoman, ready for a night of TV and knitting after I blog this.  And what's on the TV?  Julie & Julia!  A movie about blogging!  Not only that, a movie about food, which reminds me I haven't had dinner yet.  And I really like this movie, which means I probably won't fix my dinner until it's over. Hmm, Julie is talking about sending her blog out into nowhere.  I would feel like that, except I got a comment!  Thanks, Karen!

I really am looking forward to knitting tomorrow.  I'm making so much progress on the big scarf!  And finally, I have a picture!

 All seven colors, now.  The green looks a lot darker in person, really.  No flash bulb assistance, it looks almost as dark as the grey.  I've got to start weaving in ends, now.  If I leave it much longer, I'll never want to face all those dangly bits of yarn.

I'm also starting to assemble my travel wardrobe.  My color scheme will be blue, khaki, and brown.  I already have several decent pieces in those colors, and they're a lot more flattering to my skin than black and white.  Plus, it means my "dressy jacket" (recommended by www.onebag.com) covers two of the colors, and will thus go with both pants and dress that I've picked already.  Here's the dress:

I'll have to be careful which undergarments I wear with this!  Still, the twisty front is rather flattering to my assets, hehe.  And here's the jacket:

 Isn't that tapestry design just fabulous?  And it has pockets.  Of course I'll have a purse, but pockets are just about indispensable.

Hmmm... my red luggage is going to stand out quite a bit from my wardrobe.  But who cares!  I'm going to travel!  Still so excited, still so many months to go.  Sigh.

Vehicular Memories

I've been watching a lot of BBCAmerica.  Especially Top Gear.  What a show!  Three blokes nattering on about normally way-overpriced super-cars.  Then they do silly challenges with clunkers.  But sometimes, they show a cute thing like this!

 That's a Fiat 500.  And clearly I'm a sucker for little cars.  I've always dreamed of having a Mini, or a VW Bug, or maybe a SmartCar (if it got better gas mileage!).

Currently they have a contest, telling stories about your first car.  My first car... well, do you count the first one I regularly drove, or the first I actually owned?  Being rambly-me, I'll tell you about both eventually, I'm sure.

For three years pre-college, I drove my grandmother's really old Oldsmobile.  I can't even remember the year or make of it, but it was... special.  As in special needs.  The radio didn't have a tuning knob, just buttons that you pushed that might make it land on a station.  Usually not one I'd want to listen to, but it was Random Station or static.  The doors were tricky.  I'm pretty sure the passenger doors wouldn't open from the inside.  A bit inconvenient in winter, to roll down your window in order to get out.  The roof upholstery had come unglued, so a tall person would practically be wearing it..  Luckily, I'm short.  And it was a bit ol' boat, hard to park and fuel-inefficient.

I still loved it.  I had a learner's permit and a car!  Just what every teen dreams of!  "Dad, please, all I want in life is four wheels and a gasoline engine!"  "Okay, kid, here's the lawnmower, go to it!"  "Oh yeah!"  But I was able to haul around my friends when we had to sell ad space in the yearbook, or cover the football games.  It was better than nothing.  But maybe I should have been clued in when my parents insisted I borrow my uncle's Taurus to actually take my license test.  I agreed, because I knew parallel-parking the Olds would be a nightmare.

Prepping to come to college, I did despair a bit of doing anything with the Olds.  I figured I could limp it up here, but with no AC and a dubious record of starting in the cold, I thought it would pretty much stay parked until I went home.  So imagine my surprise, when on the night of my graduation, my parents gave me a Mercury Topaz!  Not new, but certainly newer than the Olds!  They'd always said that I couldn't own a car until I graduated.  The Olds wasn't actually mine, I had to ask when I wanted to take it.  But they didn't want my safety at risk in the ol' clunker, so they'd found me a decent little used Topaz.

Well, yeah, I'd say the Olds makes for a more fun first-car talk.  The Topaz was nice, but very ordinary.  First-car stories should be quirky or funny.  It's a rite of passage.

Title Forthcoming

Some days, it's hard to come up with a concrete subject to yak about.  I have a pretty good talent for rambling, though, don't I?  So here goes...

Finished the 1000 songs!  Actually, that happened on Sunday, just like I expected.  Song #999 was from Wall-E, "A.D. 2315".  It's a beautiful instrumental, sort of haunting.  The last song was "Mr. Smith & Joan" from Doctor Who season 3.  A great two-parter, where the Doctor really develops as a character.  And his companion Martha is just brilliant.  His love interest Joan Redfern is wonderful, too, I'm kind of sad she didn't have a chance to travel as his companion.

Now, I've removed some of the songs that I usually skip over.  I want to add more songs, but I can't find my disc drive.  It's around here somewhere, I'm sure... I've got to get travel stuff off my bed and couch and into the back bedroom to sort out.  Ooh, I could also trade out the audio books I've heard already!  Ah, love audio books.   A good reader makes all the difference.  David Tennant is good, but his accent does mean I have to back up occasionally.  Not that hearing more of his voice is a hardship!  Jim Dale who did the Harry Potter novels is awesome!  Just enough change in voice to distinguish the characters.

The big scarf is going well!  I'm still on the sixth color, it's a big section of dark gray.  I'm looking forward to adding the green next stripe.  Last of the colors!  At least now it's longer than it is wide.  A foot wide!  It'll definitely be one to double over as well as wrap around in order to wear!  My sock-yarn scarf is still in that knitting bag, but I get the feeling it'll soon need to relocate if I want to keep the big scarf there.

I got a pass to the ARC.  20 visits, I thought that might work better than a month-long pass.  But now I can't find the keychain card!  Arrgh!  It's so small I don't know where to start looking.  That walking track calls to me!  Around the basketball courts, the pool, the weights area... it's not just an oval!  It's the perfect thing this time of year.  Later on,  I'll get my bike out and start pedaling my way to a healthier body.  But I've got to get started.  Right now I don't even have room in my freezer to stock up on my fave healthy snack, edamame beans.  But I've got a goal to lose about 40 pounds before I travel.  I walk in place during commercials on TV.  I shop in a very disorganized fashion, which probably means I spend more but walk a lot!  Little changes.  When the weather's better, I'll also park in the far parking lot.  I'm not doing that when I have to wade through snow, or face serious wind chills.  Sorry, bit of a wimp when it comes to that.

I've been watching Torchwood, one episode each morning before I get up the energy to get ready for work.  It's rather interesting how many times the true monsters aren't the aliens, but people.  It's a good message to send, I think.  Just because someone looks different, or doesn't speak your language, or believe the way you do, doesn't mean they are evil.  Sure, in Torchwood quite a few of the aliens are bad, but somehow when the antagonist is human it just hits harder as a message.  They're more monstrous because they look just like us.

The best shows are like Torchwood and Doctor Who.  You can see them on the surface, they're fun and scary and entertaining.  But if you think about them, they bring up more complex ideas.  They stick in your head and make you wonder if you could be the hero in some situations.  They make you wonder what darkness is inside yourself, or people you know and love.  Torchwood isn't very hopeful, sometimes.  It doesn't always make me feel like there is hope for our world, which is maybe closer to reality, but I do prefer the more optimistic outlook that Doctor Who gives.

Yeah, after all that's gone on, I think I'm still more optimist than cynic.  I'd say more realist, but look at my choice of entertainment!  What a mixed bag am I.

An Ice Day

Really, it has been a nice day.  Warmer than expected!  I can actually see bits of my driveway.  But all my lovely icicles collapsed, sadly.  I'm so glad I took pictures yesterday...

Even my rose bush looks good in winter, when it's dripping with ice.  There's just something very beautiful about it... especially when two minutes later I was in my lovely toasty home with my feet in house slippers.  The pups were happy to have me home too...

Enjoy the pics.  Tomorrow I might talk about my new boots.

Pothole Season

Have you noticed how bad some of the roads are getting?  All these months with freeze/thaw cycles, all the pressure that the snow (and thus snowplows) put on the asphalt... it's a wonder my tires are intact!  This time of year, I always drive the same routes, so that I can memorize where the worst potholes are, and change lanes as much as possible to avoid them.  Odds are, they won't even try to patch them until late March or April.

On a good note, I can get in and out of my driveway again.  Snow shoveling is a heck of a workout!  The drive still has tons of snow, but it has two nearly-clear furrows for my tires.  The area near the road is a mess, but if I slide there, I can usually manage to get back into the (perfectly clear, grrr) road and make another run at it.  At least it should be melting this week.

I've decided that before my trip, I'm not just going to get a hair trim.  I'm gonna go to a spa for a manicure/pedicure!  I've never had that done, and I'm going to pack some nice sandals for the theatre, so I need my toesies to look cute.  I saw a news story on the airport bombing near Moscow.  Frightening!  I feel so sorry for all the people killed or injured in that.  But I must admit, after that I did think, how's this going to affect my travels?  I expect things may be a bit more strict at customs.  I just hope I'm not so exhausted as to lose my usual polite manner when it comes to officials.

Oh, happy day!  I have found my camera and my memory card reader!  In addition to being quite valuable when I travel, these two little items will let me put more pictures up here.  It's hard to manipulate pictures while I'm on line, since the internet connection device takes up one of my USB ports, but I'll have some ready for tomorrow, I'm sure.  And I can update all my yarny pics on Ravelry, too.

Cabin Fever

Stuck home for another day!  Sure, I made it to work yesterday, then came home to take care of the dogs and got stuck.  In my driveway.  I really should have shoveled it on Thursday.  So I missed the Friday crowd!  Oh well, I'll have to stop by a few times next week to get my knitting fix.  Along with all the other things on my to-do list!

Really, I don't exactly get bored staying at home.  There's lots to do!  A puzzle still on the dining table, knitting (of course), a pile of DVDs, and oh yeah, cleaning and laundry and the like.  I can fill my time, sure.  But I get lonely.  I'm just not the type to call up someone and yak, or ask them to come over.  I figure people don't want to deal with the snow any more than me, or they have stuff to do.  After all, their houses are probably as interesting (or cluttered) as mine!

I forget to eat on days like this.  Right now, tummy rumbling, I realize I haven't had anything for about eight hours.  Lunch was early and small.  It's not like I lack food in the house!  Both freezers are crammed to the gills with this year's beef.  Frozen veggies aplenty.  Decent pantry stock of canned goods and box dinners.  I'll probably end up making mac & cheese.  An old standby, one of the first dishes I ever learned to make on my own.  I mix it up a bit now, throw in veggies and stuff.  Breakfast was another of my signature dishes, scrambled eggs!

I remember learning how to make scrambled eggs.  It was almost Mothers' Day, and I wanted to make her breakfast in bed.  A good one, not just toast or cereal.  So, one day in the car, I asked Mom how to make them.  She described it as she drove, and I remembered.  By the time I served her that breakfast, she'd forgotten that I'd asked!  She ate the eggs, and declared them good.  Ahh, nice memory.

I'll probably finish up the 1000 playlist this weekend.  I'm over 910 now.  Recently heard Annie Lenox's version of "Whiter Shade of Pale".  Love that song!  Her version and Procol Harum's are both on this thing.  By the time the playlist is done, I'll have enough new stuff on the computer to fill it up.  Music management is a little more dull than listening, for sure, but I need to learn how to do it.

HA!  Finishing up this listening block with Robin Williams, from the "Good Morning Vietnam" soundtrack!  He says "Thank you for that lovely tune.  That funky music will make us boogaloo till we puke."

Take all the Chances...

The title comes from a song on the ol' thousand-song iPod, called "Chances" by Athlete.  It was in the Van Gogh episode of Doctor Who, which is really excellent.  The first lines are "Take all the chances that you can, you never know when they'll pass you by."

That's kind of a theme in my life.  I took a chance on coming to Mizzou instead of playing it safe closer to home.  I really took a chance dating Michael.  Age difference and racial difference were big deals to my family, but I just saw something in him.  And I suppose he saw something in me.  Of course, I can be a very surprising person, right?  This trip I'm planning.  Couldn't happen next year, not with the Olympics.  If I wait until after then, I'll have lost the nerve to do it.  Now is my chance.

The rest of the song is a little more melancholy for me, since it talks about love and kisses.  Ugh, I heard my first radio commercial of the year concerning Valentines Day.  That won't be a fun time.  It's a Monday, so I can't even really escape to my hometown.  I think some ice cream and action movies will probably fit the escapism need.

It's snowing again.  Well, it may have let up for now, but... there's a nice fresh blanket all over everything.  Even my driveway, which was almost passable before this.  But walking out from work, I was reminded of a part of winter I really love-- the squeak and crunch of fresh snow beneath my feet.  There's just something about that sound and feel, it's magical!  My feet are ready to feel warm asphalt again, though.  One of my joys in summer, walking outside barefoot.  Even on asphalt.  I'm not quite like my Dad, toughening my feet until I could run barefoot down a gravel road!  But I do like to just stroll out to get the mail without slipping on sneakers.  Ahh, still have to wait a while for that!

I'm over 760 songs into the iPod now.  The last several have been awesome.  Bohemian Rhapsody, With a Little Help From My Friends, Chances, No More I Love Yous (another tough one to listen to), and of course various Dr Who songs sprinkled through.  Those are quite appropriate considering my current knitting project!  I'm now three stripes in to Tom Baker's scarf (Season 12).  Glad to leave that tan behind for a while, even if the change is just to brown...

 See, loads of boring tan!  The stripe at the bottom right is actually a nice deep purple, and the brown is just visible at the top.  The ball of yarn at the upper left is the goldeny color that'll come next.  Hopefully my pictures of this in the future will be a lot more interesting than Huge Tan Section.  But at least it's easy to work on while getting my BBC America fix each day.

Still Life With Dogs

Sometimes I wonder why I bother to check the weather.  I have the perfect weather reporters in and out of my house at least three times a day.  If they leave tracks on the kitchen floor, it's muddy.  If they shove cold wet noses in my... hands, it's icy.  If they're panting, it's hot or there are squirrels in the backyard.  If Ty has turned white, it's snowing.  He hates those ice balls that form on his legs when it's snowy.  Saffron, on the other hand, thinks she's a snowplow.  Really, there will be a little pile of snow on her muzzle for a while after she comes in!

Really, though, I adore my doggies.  Ty's face is so expressive, especially if he's in "fuzzy" mode.  Which he will be until the average weather warms up.  It's the eyebrows.  Few dogs can match a Schnauzer for funky eyebrows.  And although I lament ever having a cloth item that doesn't have Saffron hair all over it, she really is a cuddle-bug when I need her.

It's amazing to realize, she's over four years old, and Ty is... who knows.  At least six.  If I can keep on top of their weight, maintain their health, I could have them around for six or so more years.  That much longer of toting home bags of doggie chow, debating the merits of lint roller vs. fluff cycle dryer, and the pre-vacation mad rush to find the leashes.

I now own a decent piece of luggage.  It's bright red and soft-sided.  It has a very cushy set of handles, so I could carry it sideways or vertical.  The straps that convert it to a backpack fit pretty nicely.  I also got a travel clothesline that doesn't need clothespins.  I tried it out, it worked quite well looped around the bathroom TP holder and door handle.  Add a carabiner, and I could have fastened it in half a dozen other locations, and thus not had to duck under it to shower.  Progress towards a trip!  Yay!

Knit Night

Once again, Friday has arrived, and I'm at the yarn shop!  Oh, so much to tell the knitting gang, so much to do.  I got a new graphic novel (Dr. Who, of course) in the mail, I've got planning to do for a trip later this year (and a passport form to fill out ASAP), and then of course I have two or three knitting projects with me to work on.  So what am I doing?  Blogging.

I'm starting to write letters to several celebs who I feel have helped me along a road of mourning and recovery.  Who knows if I'll hear back from them, but I feel like they should know that their work means something deep to this particular fan.  Sometimes I cry more to TV shows (even commercials, embarrassingly) than to my own grief.  But it's sort of like music, a gateway that lets me release all that emotion and get my head straight again.  (speaking of music, I'm about 600 songs into my playlist)

I wonder if this "holding in" of emotions goes back to middle- and junior high-school, when I tried to be as unemotional as Mr. Spock from Star Trek.  Literally.  He was my hero, because stuff rarely seemed to get to him, and as a young person I felt like waaay too much got to me.  Pressed my buttons, made me mad or sad or crying and very self-conscious about it.  So, I tried to be Vulcan-serious.  Maybe not the best thing, since I still felt so close to breaking down when the other kids were cruel.  There wasn't such an awareness of bullying then.  And I really think it's tougher now, what with social media and cell phones being such a part of everyday life for so many kids.  It's hard to get away from all the snide comments, snubs, etc.   All of that is just as much bullying as shoving you down and taking your lunch money.  Maybe worse, since it's psychological and the wounds aren't visible.

I really want to pick up my needles and knit something, now.  Creative juices, flow!

Snow Joke!

So, that's what I get when I commit to making a blog post every day.  My  internet goes down and the sky dumps almost six inches of snow on me.  Someday I'll learn!

The parents braved the snow anyway, to stay the night before they had appointments locally.  Cleaning the house in prep for their arrival yielded several headbands I'd thought I lost!  Plus, I finished Mom's birthday scarf, and made a headband for myself out of the leftover yarn.  Nicely productive.  Bulky yarn does have its advantages, especially getting stuff done fast.  I made a scarf for a friend in two nights' easy work.

I love the snow when it's thick and white on the ground like this.  Talk to me in three days when it's half-frozen on top, black and dirty in the streets (and thus on my shoes), and thorougly dog-dug in my backyard, and I won't be so enamored of it.  I've got the ol' bag of kitty litter in my trunk, and I'm actually a really good driver in slippery conditions (thank you, front-wheel drive!), but I'm not the type to go outside and make a snowman.  I just want to look outside and see it softly falling as I think about not having to go to work the next day.  No luck on that today!  I made it in, but we're kind of on a skeleton crew.  Luckily, so is the patron traffic.

The calendar here at the work break station showed April.  What a dream!  But really, I've got too much to do to fast-forward that far.  Travel plans, luggage to get, paperwork to file... back to the grind before the fun!

Late Night with...

I'm more than a quarter of the way through all the iPod songs.  I'm realizing, some aren't going to stay on there.  Sorry, Prince, I like you and think you're an amazing artist, but really I'm only gonna keep three or four of your songs.  Beatles, same deal.  Pop music wouldn't be the same without you guys, but I've got higher priorities for my 8G of space.

Can't sleep.  Pups are staring at me like, "Hey, mom, are you gonna ever turn the dang light off?"  You'd think they'd be used to this by now.  A good night's sleep is probably 6.5 hours.  Sleeping in is 7:30, if I'm lucky.

 This little guy helps.  He's an Adipose stress toy, thanks to the BBCAmerica shop for him.  Very squishy, and how can you not love that one little tooth in his smile!  He guards my water bottle at night, and I squish him if I feel the need.  His episode of Dr Who was on yesterday, but I was on my way to knitting already.  I watch it fairly often anyway, as it's very funny and cute.  Check it out, "Partners in Crime".

Ooh, you can see in the picture, I did my nails.  A lovely shade of Mauve, some Mary Kay type.  I should get more, this stuff looks pretty good on my hands.  I mostly got rid of my nail-chewing habit long ago, but I still sometimes give in to nail-clipping them way too short.  Nail polish helps me resist that.  Decent nails are way too useful to lose them.

I had dinner at the mall food court.  For some reason, I like watching the carousel.  And today, I think it was fate that I should be there.  I'd just gotten my bottle deposit from my local organic milk (it just tastes a LOT better) so I had two dollar bills all nice and handy.  A mom with a couple of pretty little girls was trying to get tokens to ride, and didn't have any small bills.  The machine wouldn't even take quarters.  So, I swapped her a dollar for some quarters, and the girls got their ride.  They even said thank you.

Fridays are good days.

Aaaah, it's Friday.  All is good at work, because I get to wear jeans.  Yay casual day!  Why does it seem like Fridays don't count, just because I'm in funner pants?  Who knows, but I'll take it.  It takes a lot to ruin a Friday, as soon as I slip into jeans straight from the dryer.

Ooh, Freema Agyeman has a terrific knitted hat on Law & Order UK.  Yep, another BBC America show I'm hooked on.  Really, all these shows, I get interested on them based on Doctor Who performances.  I followed David Tennant to Casanova, Hamlet, and even a great little part in a Foyle's War episode.  Sophia Myles was in that one too.  I found John Simm in State of Play, along with James MacAvoy, Bill Nighy, Tom Burke (also from Casanova).  MacAvoy and Billie Piper were in Shakespeare Retold, along with Shirley Henderson who was in Love & Monsters... oh gosh, I could trace back and forth, all the actors I've noticed and looked for further performances.

Anyway, my other Friday activity is Happy Hour at True Blue Fiber Friends.  Love the camaraderie.  Lately it seems like my only time I feel like knitting, too, which is strange.  I love knitting, but sometimes it's hard to get motivated to pick it up once a project is done.  After that, a lovely long dinner out with friends.  They're more fond of Mexican food than I am, but I can always find something I enjoy on the menu.

See, Fridays are good days.

Time is a Curse and a Delight

It seems like whenever there are loads of good movies in the theaters, I have no time to go.  Christmastime?  HA!  For many, there may be lots of vacation days and hours of leisure, but for me it just seems to get busier and busier until all I want to see is my couch.  Now?  Tangled is out, King's Speech isn't here yet, so  no movie is budging me tonight.

It's not just movies.  The days seem to be busy-busy-busy, but then the long dark hours of evening arrive and the clock slows to a crawl.  I really long for the daylight and greenness of spring and summer, this year especially.  Getting cable sort of helps, and sort of hurts.  TV fills hours, yes, but they're rarely productive hours.  And I do hate feeling like my schedule is dictated by when "my shows" come on.  Hence all the DVDs around here.  Hooray for the pause button.

They just showed sushi on TV.  Arrgh, if only I didn't have loads of leftovers!  It was pretty fun having steak this morning.  Not my usual breakfast, but it was there, and I thought it sounded better for breakfast than the leftover pasta from Mom & Dad's visit last night.  Just a tad less garlic.

Then the delight of time.  Choice.  Sure, sometimes there seems to be an overabundance of choice.  But for so long I had no choice.  Caretaker stress is some big-time stress.  I sometimes think I'm still recovering from those months.  So, time to watch a movie, read a book, listen to audiobooks, or just drive around town a bit... I savor it.  My mind goes a million miles a minute, and time to just think it all through!  Quite the blessing, really.  There are years of memories to recall.  Times when I realize I'm scrunching up my face and hunching my shoulders, and I just consciously need to relax.  Doing that, muscle by muscle, is a serious effort sometimes, but it's so good when I get it to work.  Like I'm letting go of junk I don't need.  Putting down a burden.

Visits, Breaks, and Beef

My parents brought up my share of this year's beef today.  My freezer overflows with the blessings of the home farm.  Well, hopefully not literally.  But for me, especially this time of year, beef is the cheap food.  Readily available if you don't mind microwave thawing, very tasty, and all kinds of forms.  Steaks, roasts, stew meat, soup bones including oxtail, and finally, once again, hamburger!  Really, it's the best ground beef in the world.  Yes, I'm very biased.

Usually, when I have warning that the parents are coming to visit, it sends me into a tidying frenzy.  The bathroom and kitchen, at least, have to be pretty awesome.  But last night the frenzy just failed to hit.  It was almost anti-frenzy.  I got off the phone and had the immediate desire to go to bed early.  So, this morning I got the kitchen and bath presentable.  The pups knew something was up.  I think they hoped it was a CAR RIDE, because in their canine brains, CAR RIDE is pretty much ecstasy.  It was not CAR RIDE, but SEEING MOM & DAD is just about as good.  Ah, the simple life of a dog, where such events are worthy of all caps.

This will probably be a short disorganized blogpost, considering I'm working on it on my work break.  Fifteen minutes to get revved up for the remainder of the day.  And I'm using it testing my speed-typing skills!  I thought I'd have my laptop here at work and do this at lunch, but when Mom & Dad first made their plans, it involved taking me out to lunch.  Didn't happen.  So lunch was spent eating delivery food (hooray Pickleman's!  Best tomato bisque in town.) and reading graphic novels (Doctor Who, surprise surprise).

I've certainly gotten more music time in.  Song 88, currently, only 912 to go.  And I've started a new morning routine, which will hopefully make getting out of bed more of a treat.  If I get up on time, when the alarm goes off, I have enough time to watch one episode of Doctor Who before I get ready for work.  Even one snooze hit, and I just don't have enough time to squeeze it in.  It does make mornings somewhat regimented and vulnerable to the unexpected, but hey, anything that makes me want to get up and going is probably a good thing.  The theme song is just long enough for me to make that cup of coffee, too.

Woo, 15 minutes of typing!  Song 89, "To Sir With Love".

Device of a Thousand Songs

I've pretty much filled up my iPod.  Love the thing.  Named it the mini-TARDIS.  I figured I'd never find a way to fill up 8 gig!  I don't have that many CDs any more.  I forgot about the library.  (yeah, I know, I work there how could I forget about it... never mind)  Plus, I discovered the gorgeous voice of David Tennant in audio books!  Aww, and I thought they couldn't make audio books any better.

Oh, he got engaged recently.  Congrats.  *sniffle*  Really, David, don't mind me and the millions of other fangirls who are crying tonight.  We all figured we somehow had a chance, if you could just meet us, and not have Georgia as a girlfriend, and if we managed to not literally "squeee" at your awesomeness.  I just saw Jay Leno match your lap time in Top Gear, by the way.  Yay, yet another show I'm addicted to.  As far as the DT obsession goes, I'll just have to watch Galaxy Quest again, to remind myself how silly fangirl-ness really is.  Is that a word?  Is now.

Back to the iPod!  Music really is important to me.  It's hard for me to drive or do housework or anything pretty much besides watching TV without having music on.  Like doing this blog.  Since I noticed I have exactly 1000 songs in the mini-TARDIS, I thought I should see how long it will take me to listen to each and every one, no skipping.  I haven't had much time to devote to it today, so I'm only on #12.  There should be some interesting combinations, though.  I've already had gospel Elvis followed by the Beatles' "When I'm 64."

The current song is "Amy in the TARDIS" by Murray Gold.  He easily wins as the most prolific artist in my iPod, probably followed by Pink.  It's hard for me to think of a Murray Gold song I don't like.  They cover such range of emotion and easily conjure up the episodes they're from when I hear them.  My favorite Murray Gold moment was when I was watching Casanova (hi again, David Tennant!) and thought to myself, "You know, that music... it reminds me a lot of my Doctor Who soundtrack!"  Up come the credits, and ta-da!  There's Mr. Gold listed for music.  I should trust my ears more!

Sometimes, I feel like my emotions get all bottled up.  I literally can't let them out or I think I'll shatter, or break down and never pull together again.  (Killers, "All These Things I've Done" just came on)  When I get like that, the thing that breaks through is music.  It lets me cry, based on what I'm hearing, and then I can cry for myself too.  Then, the right music builds me up again and I can get on with life.

I think the puppies get amused when I sing out "I got soul but I'm not a soldier" too.  And I sort of dance around to it.  Or at least do a head-bob.  Okay, maybe the pups should be laughing their little canine heads off at their silly mama.

(Macy Gray, "I Try")  Oh, this song is rather reflective of me sometimes. "I play it off but I'm dreamin' of you..."  "Though I try to hide it, it's clear, my world crumbles when you are not here"  There are some songs I have to skip, in certain moods.  "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" was one of those skip-it songs in the weeks after Michael died.  Maybe I'm too affected by music.  But no, I'm  not going to feel bad about being sensitive.

(Shangri-La's, "Leader of the Pack")  Scuse me, I gotta go find some backup singers for this one!

Back to Work

Back to work after a holiday is a hard thing in the best of times.  Now, I don't have Michael urging me on to get going, get outta bed, start the day.

At least the dogs still look at me with that "Mom, we really gotta go, can it please be in our backyard?" sort of look.  Once I get out of bed, the routines kick in.  Routines are a big thing now.  Almost rituals, sometimes.  Night, I've got a candle, reading, and music.  Morning is for tidying up (self and house).  Afternoon, TV and knitting.  Once a day, the HotShot gives me nice hot water for a coffee or cuppa, depending on my caffeine requirements.

Once I'm at work, I'm good.  It's nice, seeing the "regulars," hearing what my coworkers did over the weekend.  Today, I got to show off the Lego Guggenheim museum I built.  I didn't think I could get Fallingwaters there and back in one piece.

I should adjust the routine somewhat, though.  Gotta do more clutter control.  It seems to be closing in on me, taking over the sofa and the desk chair this weekend.  Heck, there's still Christmas debris in Saffron's usual lounging corner.  Michael always did say I was less a "messy" and more a "force of entropy."  Really, I'm better than I used to be.  The laundry room floor is still mostly visible, and I haven't even thrown in the washerload I'm planning on tonight.

Wow, what excitement.  It is a Monday, my only excuse.

Creation and Obsession

I was thrilled to find that my cable was working yesterday.  BBCAmerica had a Doctor Who marathon!  I watched faaaar too many episodes.  Still, though, it wasn't a totally wasted day.  I multitasked.  Dishes were done, laundry was washed, and trash was hauled to the garage to wait for trash day.

But that wasn't the crowning glory of the day.  Nope, that goes to this doozy of a Lego kit that I found at Barnes & Noble.  It was only 811 pieces...

Pretty much my favorite building in the world, Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwaters.  Ya know, I really should travel there and see it in person.  Building it in Lego was so much fun!  It took several hours, but oh it's a gorgeous design.  You can't tell from the picture, but there are actually four major parts that essentially slide together.  Just elegant, beautiful... uhm, I'm gushing.  Well, I made it, I get to be a bit proud!  I tried shining my sonic screwdriver through the clear "water" blocks, but the light didn't get very far.

For most of the day, I also forgot to eat.  It's just not very exciting to cook for myself.  Usually, I forget to take stuff out of the freezer in time to eat it for dinner.  Yesterday's ham was today's sandwich.  Today's T-bone... well, we'll see what I can do with it when it's not an ice block tomorrow.  I've still got some of the ham left anyway.

Oh, and if you're thinking of watching a re-broadcast of Doctor Who's Christmas Carol special?  Make sure it's the full version.  The one that shows in an hour with commercials?  CHOPPED apart.  I've seen the full version (an hour sans commercials) so I know what's missing.  It's explanatory scenes, romantic development, character-building scenes... I can see why they cut what they did, but it was just too much to maintain the charm of the show.  Now all I have to do is wait for Amelia's Song to be released!  So beautiful.

Beginnings

Widowed in 2010.  I’m very glad to put that year behind me.  There’s no manual for how to deal with all the changes, though, so I’m muddling through being on my own for the first time in over a decade.

It’s all the little things… who to tell that I saw the lake steaming fog that one morning, watched a movie that made me think, gripe about a difficult customer at work.  Talking to my dogs just isn’t quite the same.

The dogs… oh, they really have saved me.  Furry unconditional love is a very good salve for a lonely heart.  And having to care for something beyond yourself is always a good motivation for getting out of bed.

What else helps?  Hmm… faith, friends, and knitting.  Yep, I’m a knitter.  Not particularly fast, but I do enjoy a variety of projects.  I should cast on a new project today, New Year’s Day is a good time to start things.

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