Friday, January 30, 2009

Of Post-its and Problems

The other morning a gal on the bus gave me a couple of packs of post-its. It was odd. At first, I was suspicious because one time a guy had tried to sell me socks and a TV Guide on the bus. She said her grandmother had given her a bunch and told her to give them away if she could not use them. So she gave me some. They are now sitting in my bag. I do like to use post-its when I knit; for marking my current line and keeping a repeat tally. It was really nice of her to give them to me, but now I feel guilty because I haven’t done anything for anyone else this week. You know, to pay it forward, it is a lot of pressure.

Yesterday we gave up our dog. The conflicts between him and The Girl were getting totally out of control, so he had to go. I would’ve liked to keep him, but I really can not kick a pregnant teenager out of the house. And I know that someone could provide my boy with a good home. He is such a friendly, happy dog. We brought him to a shelter that does no have a time limit on how long they hold the animals, so hopefully he will be okay. He is at the MN Valley Humane Society, so if you live in the Twin Cities and are looking for a dog, please go check him out.
In reality, my husband brought him because I knew that I could not do it. I feel so terrible that I would ever get rid of an animal for which I am responsible. I have never done such a thing before and I hope I never have to again.

Overall, it has been a very sad month for me. I hope February is better.

Do you watch “Fringe”? In this week’s episode (12: No Brainer), Astrid is wearing the cutest sweater. I would love to get a photo of it so I could examine the design.

I have "Lost" theories, but I do not have time to discuss them right now and I want to re-watch the episode to reaffirm them. So I will let you know later what I come up with.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Another birthday…still not mine

Today The Girl turns 17. She wanted a Gamecube for her birthday so we bought one at the pawn shop. This is old gaming technology, but she loves the game Animal Crossing so that is what she wanted. The Girl drives me mad. I suppose it doesn’t matter. I do not even remember what I wanted for my 17th birthday, nor do I remember what gift I received from my parents. I do remember that I bought myself a Canon T-50 camera for my 17th birthday. I received my 1st tax refund the same week as my birthday and it seemed appropriate to buy myself a gift. I still have that camera. It has always worked well. Any WAY, we are all going out to Red Lobster tonight for her birthday dinner. This is her choice, I actually find the Red Lobster to be fairly bland. It is one of those places where when you order your food, it sounds really tasty but when it comes it is just boring.

I am sorry for my lack of blogging as of late. I do not have a good excuse; I have just been feeling blah. There has been fighting at home, which never helps. And work has been, well work. Yesterday I took the day off. It was nice. I had hoped to just spend the day with my hubby, but The Girl did not go to school because she had a meeting at her new school. Oh, I bet I did not tell you about the new school. This is one not far from where we live and is for pregnant teens and teen mothers. She is very excited about the prospect of a new school. This makes it high school number 4 and she is only a junior. Well, I think technically she is still a sophomore, but they think she will be able to graduate on time if she does summer classes.
Anyway, since The Girl was home, I did not have much time with my husband. We did go to the thrift store and bought a new office chair to replace the one with the broken seat we had been using. I also bought a ball of Hempathy for about $3, not bad huh?

Last night I cast on for The Daily Sweater from “Mason Dixon’s Knitting Outside the Lines". It is a really good book and I have already knit the kitchen towel out of it. I am not using Calmer for my sweater, rather Ella Rae Silkience in a cranberry/wine color. It is very nice. I knit a gauge swatch and got gauge on the 1st go through. Now this really does not mean very much, because I am not very good at measuring gauge. I never have been, but since this is done from the top down, I will try it on as I go and adjust if needed.

The big event yesterday though was “Lost”. It is back!! Hooray!! Spoilers ahead!!
So the Losties have become unstuck in time, just like Billy Pilgrim. This is never good. Jack has Sayid. I do not know if this is bad or not. I think the Oceanic 6 are going to have to go back to the island to fix what has happened. The “cops” have Hurley. I do not think the men who picked up Hurley were really police officers since one of them is Abbadon (the guy who recruited the Freighter people). I am pretty sure Hurley is going to be in custody of Widmore. Which I do not think is good either. Of course, that is because I like Ben and I think Charles Widmore is a jerk. I could be wrong. It does happen on occasion. I still believe Jin is dead. There is nothing that has occurred to make me think otherwise. We will see. I think Sun is on a revenge mission to destroy the other Oceanic 6 for leaving Jin behind. I did not believe her when she says she doesn’t blame Kate. Just the way she said the thing about Kate going back for Jin and not getting him. She totally was blaming Kate. I think she has become like her father, ruthless. I do not understand why she would blame Ben for Jin’s death. I can see Widmore, because it was his people who were responsible for the freighter being there and being full of C4. I can see Jack and Kate since they did not wait for Jin. Unless she some how found out Ben killed Kimmy, which is what set off the explosion. But who would tell her that, Ben wouldn’t. Did Locke tell her when he saw her? That doesn’t really make sense since I am pretty sure that he wouldn’t say anything that would interfere with his mission to get everyone back. Gosh, I love “Lost”!

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Reflections on a New Year

This is the time of year that we traditionally examine the past year and look forward to the new one. So I have been thinking about life in general. To sum up last year, it sort of sucked. My teenager caused various kinds of trouble. She got pregnant. She got arrested. And her boyfriend moved in with us. So really not great a reflection on me as far as my parenting skills go for 2008. Not that I really think I have ever had great parenting skills. My maternal instincts have never been great. I am pretty sure it is because I have a mind that is far too logical. This is something I made my self into on purpose. It was my way of dealing with my depression when I was in high school. I figured if there were no emotions I could not feel bad. This, of course, is bloody nonsense. If you suffer from depression, please get help. Find a therapist who teaches skills based therapy. It saved my life and I should have done it before I did so much damage to myself. Anyway, I digress.
I worked a lot in 2008. Well, no more than I do any other year, but it seemed like I spent a lot of time at work. Of course, this is probably caused by the fact I hate my job. Okay, that is not quite true. I do not mind my job, I am just sick of sitting in an office day after day.
What good things happened in 2008?
We went on a nice road trip. The only down note on the trip was The Girl’s morning sickness…
I learned how to knit two handed. So I can now do Fair Isle, which is really cool.
The Vikings made it to the playoffs.
I managed to disengage myself from my family without even trying. This is both good and bad as I do feel sorry for The Girl because I had been tolerating my family all this time mostly for her sake. She is not perfect, but she is still my siblings’ niece, you would think that would count for something.

Okay, I really can not think of a lot of great things that happened in 2008. I made it through, that is always good, and so I suppose I should be grateful.

Does 2009 look any better? Not really, I am going to turn 40 and become a grandmother. The Girl is going to make me get rid of my crazy dog so I will no longer have someone to breathe on my toes at night to keep them warm. I know that The Girl will not be able to behave herself once the baby comes and we will be right back where we were a year ago, only with an innocent life at stake to boot. Maybe I am wrong; maybe it will be a great year. Who knows?

RESOLUTIONS
I do have a couple of resolutions. Nothing fancy as I really am not very good at resolutions.
1. I intend to go through my WIPs on a regular basis and decide if I am going to finish the project or just rip it out. If I decide to finish, I will try to get them ordered so I can get some of them done.
2. I am going to learn how to steek. Since I learned how to do Fair Isle, I have been wanting to learn how to steek as well. I have just been too scared to do it. So that is my BIG knitting resolution. I like the idea of learning something new every year.
3. I am going to make stuff for my granddaughter. This is not a hard resolution, since I have already started. However, I firmly believe that you should have some goals that are easy to achieve so you do not feel like a failure.
4. I want to start a new banking account for the Alpaca fund.


That is really all I have. Nothing too big, like I said, but I should be able to achieve most of them.

Friday, January 02, 2009

Happy New Year

Christmas came and went without much incident. I did not finish my husband’s present on time. I had to spend Christmas Eve day and evening wrapping presents, so no knitting occurred. And then I spent the rest of my Christmas break finishing up the convertible fingerless mitts for my co-worker. She was very please to have a complete pair. I did not get a picture before I gave them away because I did not have my camera around.
I did get some pictures on Christmas Day.
Here is our tree. Isn’t it lovely?


Here is our troublesome dog that we are going to have get rid He was helping me open presents.

I hope your Christmas was as good as mine.

MOVIE REVIEW
Over the Christmas break we went to see “Milk”. We were going to see “Frost / Nixon”, but it was sold out. In fact, there were people trying to sneak in and one of the ushers had to go and kick people out. Anyway, we had wanted to see “Milk” as well, so it worked out okay. I have to highly recommend “Milk”, it is a wonderful film. The acting is divine and the story line is very moving. Josh Brolin is brilliant as Dan White. It is the story of Harvey Milk, the 1st openly gay man to be elected to a major office in the USA. There were no hand knits, but since the movie takes place in San Francisco, that is not really surprising. Regardless, I am going to give it 3 ½ knitting needles out of 4. I recommend you see this film. It will make you think and that is never a bad thing.

Old Year – Out Like A Lion…
New Year’s Eve day started out so good. The Girl had a doctor’s appt so we had an opportunity to talk to The Boyfriend alone. We explained that we did not want The Girl to run off and live on a military base with him and he seemed to agree. She had told us of this plan on Christmas Eve. Now we just need to convince her. I worry about the baby because she really does not have a handle on her rage, which we got to see when we arrived home. My husband had accidentally left our troublesome dog out of his crate and he got into The Girl’s bedroom and ate her food and candy. She flew completely off of the handle and was mean and yelling at us and the dog all night. She finally went to a friend’s house. So we are stuck having to get rid of our dog and nobody seems to want him. He really is a good dog; he just needs to live with someone who is not going to yell at him over everything he does. I have thought of just moving out on my own with him, but it seems sort of extreme and I could not afford to pay for 2 places to live.
She seemed to be fine yesterday. I really hate the mood swings. When will they stop? Maybe they won’t, that is my fear, that she will always be so out of control.

On happy news, I finished my husband’s gift. It was a pair of socks! He loves them and they fit him perfectly. Yeah!!!