Happy Halloween!

"Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again."

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

The Lord of the Rings (Gandalf and Frodo Baggins)

Happy Halloween!!!!

Don't judge a blog by its cover

I've had some pretty profound feedback about my blog recently. People far removed from my daily life have, on more than one occasion, reached out to tell me that they are reading, and they are liking. Deeply beautiful compliments that gosh, make me feel so gushy and good inside. Thank you for reaching out and being so kind you people who know who you are. Really.

But this is the wierd thing about blogging; I liken it to online dating. You look at the little catalog of potential suitors and they've posted their BEST pictures and written all about their BEST qualities. And you think they are fabulous or you don't. But either way, you're only getting one side to a very multi-faceted story. Such is this blog.

Let's face it, you don't know how I can sometimes cuss like a drunken sailor when I'm driving, with profanities that literally amaze me with their spontaneous creativity, like "Get out of my way you stupid effing fartwad". I mean, I don't even know what a fartwad is much less WHY I feel inclined to call some perfectly lovely person one just because they make me have to brake.

You don't know how, after so much breastfeeding, my boobs point completely down. National Geographic African woman down. And how sad that makes me feel. And that I really do want a boob job one day, not to have big ol' knockers but just to have some nice small ones. That point straight.

You don't know how sometimes I feel the need to laugh at incredibly inappropriate times, like when a patient is scared as he describes his brother with cancer who uncontrollably sweats and drives a cab sweating profusely all day long and this patient is all upset because he's starting to get these sweats and I just start laughing because all I can picture is this profusely sweating cabbie driving around town and the whole thing is just so stinking INAPPROPRIATE. And I have to verbally fight myself in my head to shut my laughter up because it's just not the time or the place.

You don't know that much to my pre-baby chagrin, I rarely hang out with my non-kid friends anymore. I always SWORE I wouldn't do that, but it appears I have. It doesn't make me happy and I don't do it to be elitist. I just feel really far removed from that carefree world of staying out late and spontaneous trips out of town and concerts and dancing and all that fun stuff I used to do all the time. On many (many) nights I'm perfectly happy to stay in and knit. Really Summer? Really? MAN!

Sometimes I don't feel good enough. Sometimes I think I look horrid, old, wrinkled, boring.
Sometimes I do feel good enough. I feel strong and wise and full. But these days sometimes have large gaps between them.

I am the worst passenger seat driver in the world. I have to very literally hold my hands down so I don't gasp and make the STOP signal every time I see brake lights and said driver doesn't immediately start to break. It is so annoying and absolutely drives my husband nuts.

You don't know about the time I was a waitress for the Olive Garden and I was late for my shift so I lied and made up a story about how someone stole my wallet, then all the waitstaff got together and pooled their money and presented it to me at the end of the shift and how I ACCEPTED IT! Yes folks, I took that dirty money.

You don't know how scared I can get that something bad will happen to my child. And then I'm scared that I will just crumple up and die, because the thought of being here without her or watching her in pain is very literally heart breaking. This is a fear that gets me to my core.

Bottom line is I'm not perfect. None of us are, I get that. We all have our neuroses. We all have things that probably drive other people nuts. But having said that, I like who I am, really, despite this confessional blog entry. But like life, finding the balance between self acceptance and self scrutiny is a dynamic process. I want to always work on myself, work on what doesn't work.

I had an old boyfriend who, when talking about a beautiful woman would say, "that's just someone else's headache". And really, that's kind of an asshole thing to say. But on the other hand, it's accurate in that a beautiful woman has more to her than just her beauty. We all have so much more beyond what even those closest to us know about.

How well do we know anyone really?

Fall-ing in love

The weather is surely getting colder.

Our heat comes on at night now. My summer clothes are all packed away.

But before the nights get teeny tiny and I have constant hankering for all things baked, comes the small, glorious window of time that is the Fall. The air, the chill, the colors, the glorious desire to be outdoors kicking leaves around...this is where it's at.

This makes me very, very happy.



If you knew how crappy of a cook I am that you'd know why this was worthy of a picture.

 

Lovin the cider.

 

Cousins!!!

 

The petting zoo...not havin it.



Ellie's hat: a pattern

Here is a super duper easy hat pattern that is simply adorable! For the record: I'm sure someone, somewhere has a hat very similar to this as it is SO basic, but since I made it from the lightbulbs in my own brain I'm posting it here. Enjoy! And please let me know if you see a mistake.

1 skein super chunky yarn

#8 circular needle
#8 double pointed needles.

Cast on 66 stitches with the circular needle.Join in round and work in 1x1 ribbing for 1 inch (or desired length for brim)
**Knit 5 rows,
Purl next row**

repeat ** for 4 inches (or desired length to crown)

Decrease: (switch to dpn when it becomes too tight)

*K9, k2tog* (repeat * 6 times). You now have 60 stitches

Knit row

*K8, ktog* (repeat * 6times). You now have 54 stitches

Knit row

K7, k2tog (repeat * 6times). You now have 48 stitches.

Purl row

K6, k2tog  (repeat * 6times). You now have 42 stitches.

Knit row

K5, k2tog (repeat * 6times). You now have 36 stitches.

K4, k2tog (repeat * 6times). You now have 30 stitches.

K3, k2tog (repeat * 6times). You now have 24 stitches.

K2, k2tog (repeat * 6times). You now have 18 stitches.

K1, k2tog (repeat * 6times). You now have 12 stitches.

K2tog (repeat * 6times). You now have 6 stitches

Cut an 8" tail and weave through rest of stitches, close up tight and secure yarn from inside hat.

You're done!

Holy pain in the rear end!

Home ownership is so NOT what it's cracked up to be. I mean it's lovely and exciting to buy, but say, hypothetically of course, that you and your boyfriend decide to get MARRIED and you have a BABY, and then your adorable little QUAINT starter home suddenly feels made for midgets. And, hypothetically of course, you tell yourself it's okay that your adorable baby is in a renovated broom closet (literally) because she is less than 3 feet tall, and say hypothetically that you have one bathroom that is so small that the door literally hits your ass when you're sitting on the toilet. And then you and hypothetical husband and child can all convene in the bathroom and discuss why it is SO FREAKING time to sell your home. Hypothetically. Of course.

Our house is on the market, starting today, and in preparation for this we have gutted this house. No massive piles of toys laying around. No dirty clothes. No shoes in the middle of the floor. MAJOR Good Will juju. In truth it feels amazing to declutter, and mystifying how much CRAP you can get out of your sight and feel confident you will not even need to access in any near future. I have repurposed the "toy room" into a feng shui catalog piece, and let me just TELL you that getting there was not easy. Oh no-ho-ho-ho. Especially with a small child tornado-ing her way through this house and refusing to let you not give her attention for any great length of time.

By the way, did you KNOW that you can advertise your CRAP on Craigslist and people will actually come over and buy it? Ho!!! Yes of course this has been happening for sometime, but I've never utilized the selling side of craigslist, and so far I've made a good chunk of change on things that, in a former life, I would have just given away. (Oh there is still plenty of philanthropizing going on, believe you me). Yes it is kind of wierd to invite random strangers over to your home to check out your used changing table, but is it worth $50. You betcha!

Anyway, this house selling business should be interesting. We have to allow time for random strangers to come traipsing through our house while we go busy ourselves elsewhere. It's pretty creepy and kind of violating feeling. But that's how this game works.

Need a hit of cuteness?

I mean seriously!

This is my current favorite pic. What a great kid. I'm so lucky.

Ravenous

There is one hallmark thing that happens to me when I get on my period. Sometimes I'm bitchy. Sometimes I'm sad.

I'm always hungry.

I am talking ravenously hungry. Like I've considered buying myself my entire box of cereal and hiding it from Mike so he won't judge me kind of hungry. And truly every month when I'm scouring the cupboards like some wild eyed wildabeast I gently step away from myself in awe and think, oh yes. I see what I'm doing. That dang period again.

Anyway, I'm ravenous right now and when it's 930 at night this is exactly the time I don't want to be making brownies and then not cooking them so I can eat the batter. This is the time to sleep, and rest, and let those darn glycogen stores get good and empty so I can manhandle the kitchen at breakfast. So naturally what better deterent from nightime gluttony than a good ol blog sesh.

I had a friend say to me just this weekend "I just don't get the blog thing. Is it your diary? Are you just putting your diary on the internet?

And a friendly, contained answer for that would be "uh-no." I can assure you I don't write about my period or my day in my diary. But, well, uh, actually I guess I would write about that stuff in said hypothetical diary. Except I don't have one. And maybe it is a little wierd that I write diary worthy material on the world wide web. What kind of wierd pleasure should I derive from that? Well anyway it got me thinking. I do contemplate this blog every now and again. Sometimes I start feeling ambitious with it, especially when all y'all brighten up my moments with COMMENTS! Glorious COMMENTS! And other times I feel bored with the blog, or rather with my life. But I guess when it's all said and done this blog keeps on keeping on. And the only reason it does that is because... I love to write. Some people have crack. I have this blog.

In other news for all you yogi's out there, I took camel to new heights tonight and it involved an elegantly grand gesture backwards into the unknown and frankly quite a bit of surprise that my body could bend that way.

And THAT is a good way to end the night. (take THAT Lucky Charms)

The art of dealing with things

Yesterday I had a patient die in front of me. Not in the slow, coma-like state that so often happens with end stage cancer, but in a quick please-someone-save-me kind of way. We were in her home, her home where she was already up and eating breakfast with her family. Suddenly she became restless, restless in a bad sort of way. She was struggling for air when I got there. I tried every intervention I could think of, I gave her family and those present directions on what to do. I tried to find the right thing to do to save her, was waiting for the ambulance to come, and as she was laying in her friend's arms I knew her body had stopped fighting. She became limp and I had to say the words "I'm so sorry. She's gone". Then I had to sit in a house that became overcome with grief. Family members wailing, wanting to know why! Blaming me. How could she be gone when she was OK just moments ago.

Truthfully, I didn't know.

I think she had a pulmonary embolism. That is when a blood clot formed in some part of your body gets lodged in the lung and you are no longer able to oxygenate your body. When the body has no oxygen people can get crazy. That's the presentation I saw when I arrived. Then the craziness turned to peacefulness. Then the peacefulness turned to death. I watched her die the same way I'm fairly certain my father died, though no one will ever really know.

That visit was very long, and I'm so grateful for my social worker co-worker that arrived to be present with this family. I kept my brave nurse face on and then left and saw a list of patients. I got lost in all of the tasks that consumed me on that busy day. And then I went home. I took care of my toddler. My husband came home. It wasn't until the very end of the day when I was able to sit, alone, and not "do". I hadn't yet processed the events of the morning, and they were significant. I kept wanting to "do". I wanted to make something. Read something. But I couldn't. I felt void of excitement and creativity. I was tired.

The thing they don't teach you in nursing school, and they don't teach you in life, is how to process the things you put on your shelf that simply must be dealt with. I'm still learning that art.

I'm a very exciting person. I'm a very exciting person. I'm a very exciting person. (mantra of the day)

Guess what? I'm not creative anymore.

I'm tapped out. A dry well. A big blank sheet full of absolutely nothing interesting to say. A bellowing echo into a deep abyss of nothing amusing whatsoever.

BLEHHHHHHH!!!!!

But hey you want to hear about how my kid can point to her belly button? Or why I accidentally got baby shit on my pants? Or all the words to Good Night Moon? Do YA????

I am a well educated professional! I have maintained a blog for over 3 years! I used to have lots and lots of things to say, neat things, things that didn't make you want to dry heave all over yourself from total and utter boredom. I recognize my little kernal of fire inside that wants to make stuff and learn stuff and discover stuff. But right now that fire is weakly flickering in a poop storm of responsibility and duties. It's just the way it is right now. Work gets done. Dinner gets made. Dishes get cleaned. Child loved and entertained. Child cleaned. Child goes to bed. Squeeze in a workout somewhere. House gets picked up. And then, and then, and then...it's GO TIME.

No. It's pj time, then feet up on the couch as me and Mike fight over who's turn it is to rub whose feet.

We are so awesome.

little pieces of goodness

The fam and I have just returned from a super lovely trip to Northern California. There we were reunited with my mom, my brother, my nephew and my sister in law. We enjoyed our built in babysitting services courtesy of Lala and went on dates! And hikes! And runs! And ate sushi! And went shopping without wrangling a toddler who thinks its the funniest thing in the world to hide behind anything hanging! And it was gorgeous out! And we had family dinners! And we explored Berkeley! And we explored Marin! And then! And then! And then! (HA! Ironically, it was relaxing and peaceful, as I shall now indicate with another exclamation point!)

It feels fulfilling to spend quality time with family. Sitting outside during a homecooked meal with all my family eating at the table, all of us laughing and telling stories, filling our wine glasses, I remember stopping to think that THESE are beautiful moments. Everyone gathered inside as we watched old pictures, everyone laughing at Ellie as she ran through the room screaming with toddler glee (literally). It was fabulous. And the most fabulous parts did not involve crowds or spending or any such things. Being together was the most beautiful thing of all.