inside/outside

Outside, the sky is dark, and the weather could best be described as "wintry mix" - sleety rain, itty bitty ice balls, and wet snow. There's a good 1/2 inch of slush on the ground, but the roads aren't too bad yet. The wind has picked up, the temperature is dropping, and by morning it's supposed to be snowing pretty hard.

Inside, it's warm and bright. I spent the morning de-cluttering my room and generally being domestic - doing laundry, loading the dishwasher, drinking coffee (and dunking samoas, my favorite Girl Scout cookies). By the time the rain started, I was curled up with the Technicolor Blankie and a documentary about the Dalai Lama. Documentaries make excellent yarning movies - they're usually narrated, so you don't have to watch the screen as much. I went to work  - one client - and now am curled up again, ready to pick the blanket back up. Not much left to go - I'm on the final shade of yellow, then just three shades of green and I can begin the border! Mom and I are having canned chicken and gouda bisque for dinner, it's definitely soup-eating weather! Yummm, soup and buttered toast...maybe a mug of tea...

The baby shower on Sunday was a lot of fun! The two grandmas-to-be did an excellent job with the decor, and the food was amazing - homemade pasta and vegetable salads, and sandwiches from the Erie Bread Company. There was also a variety of giant cupcakes made by a local bakery - I picked German chocolate, nommalicious! The new parents are pretty well-prepared now, I think (E is campaigning for one of the three Baby Bullet sets, ostensibly because "Auntie's going to be feeding the baby too"...but secretly she wants to use it for more adult purposes. Who wouldn't want to mix cocktails then put them in smiling cups?!). The bonnet and booties were a hit, especially with E's mom, with whom I bonded over yarn - she knitted some very nice scarves as table prizes, and I won one (yay!) in a gorgeous blue/grey/beige colorway. There would be a pic, but I forgot it at E's yesterday morning. Ah, well.

Well, the blanket is calling my name, so it's time to continue my cozy evening. In addition to blanket-making and soup-eating, there will also be some online garden seed purchasing...there's an American heirloom lettuce variety called Tom Thumb that I'm dying to try, decisions on dry soup beans to be made, and hmmmm, do we want to grow bell peppers this year or not? Dreaming lots of garden dreams.....

8/52: 52 Weeks of Happy! (and a birthday!)

 Birthday Twinkies! From Canada! I never thought I'd get to have another Twinkie after Hostess went bankrupt here in the US. And on my birthday, too!!

 Birthday Skeeball! One of my favorite games to play as a kid. I could spend hours upon hours (and tokens upon tokens, lolol) trying for a new high score. It's a bit of an obsession. And yes, I do in fact wear my rainbow hat pretty much everywhere in the winter. :o)

A new, dressy top - that isn't black - for E's brothers' baby shower tomorrow. It's...not at all what I went looking for, especially considering I'm not very girly. At All. Unless you count my love of glitter. But back to the shirt! This particular robin's-egg-ish shade of blue is one of my favorites, and it's soft, and I was looking for something turtleneck-y...and out of all the shirts I tried on, it looked the best! And it was 60% off!

Not Pictured: the Aerolatte Milk Frother my sister gifted me (it's like a mini immersion blender! and it froths hot and cold milk! and I've used it four times already!); the mini vanilla cupcakes Mom brought home; the lunch I'm having with a friend this afternoon; and the three mornings this week I got to sleep in. *insert contented purring noises here*

So, yeah. Birthday. I turned the big 3-4 on Thursday, and didn't mind a bit! For one thing, it's my hockey jersey number; for another, I'm a big believer in the whole "you're only as young as you feel" school of thought. And I know a lot of amazing womyn that have utterly destroyed all concepts of what it means to get "old".

Still...34. I'm not at all where I thought I'd be years ago...and you know what, I'm much happier for it. I'm with the love of my life...we (and the majority of my friends and family) have for the most part opted out of mainstream culture and priorities (money! looks! stuff! power!) and are instead pursuing self-sufficiency and making lives instead of livings...I can honestly say that I LOVE my job...yes, I'd say things are pretty much perfect. I did think I'd be a mom by now...but that's still an option in a couple years, still up for discussion, and not something we'll do unless we're much more ready than we are right now.

But, yes - it really was an excellent day. Everything a birthday ought to be. E let me sleep in that morning, and on my way home I stopped for gas and found Twinkies...I had an amazing homemade chocolate coffee with lots of froth, and then some cupcakes, and I got tons of well-wishes from friends and family. E took me to dinner (she had steak, I had a cheeseburger with deep-fried onions on it) and then to Chuck E Cheese's where we braved the crowds of elementary schoolers and won lots of tickets playing lots of games. Mostly skeeball. Ahem. And I beat her at shooting basketball. Very soundly, in fact. Twice. She claims she lost a lot of butch points that night. :o) Really, it was a total blast playing together!

Oh, and the best present of all? Getting the invite to return as a worker to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival in August, this time as part of the Massage short crew!!!!!!! I was getting really anxious, it's never taken this long to get the invite, and it turned out to be because they decided to put me somewhere else this year. But as much as I loved, and will miss, working lights on the main stage, the reality is the technology has outstripped me, and while the new crew will be different and take getting used to, I really think it will be a better fit.

Off to get some hooky time in before meeting my buddy for lunch...gotta finish the booties for tomorrow! Happy Saturday, everyone!

7/52: 52 Weeks of Happy!

 A wee, roaring beastie in my coffee!

The first issue of our subscription to Mother Earth News! Yayayayayay!

Fibonacci, enjoying his Snail Jacuzzi. I wonder if the bubbles tickle?

Did I tell you that we thought Fibonacci died? E found his empty shell on the aquarium floor, upside down. We were both upset. Before bed, I asked if it was possible he'd just left his shell, like hermit crabs do, and she said it wasn't likely. We decided to keep his little shell, but she was tired and left it in the tank for the night. The next morning, she sent me a picture of him trucking across the gravel! He did, in fact, have an out-of-shell experience!

Not pictured: the smile on my face when we woke up (after having slept in) on Valentine's Day, and E said "Surprise - I called off work so we could spend the day together!"; the feel of my newly repaired violin nestled under my chin for the first time in ten years; the snow on the ground outside today; and the 26 (whew!) massages I performed this week. Yeah abundance!!

6/52: 52 Weeks of Happy!

 Attending a birth for a doula client! She developed complications and needed a c-section. We were all a little loopy from lack of sleep, and I was (probably) a little too amused with dressing up for the OR.

 E and I went to the site of Tiger Stadium (torn down in 2009)!!! The field is still there, diamond and all, maintained by a group of volunteers who have christened it Ernie Harwell Park. The last time I was inside these gates was summer of 2000, during the filming of Billy Crystal's movie *61. It's such hallowed ground for me. This is from the pitcher's mound, with the center field flagpole (historic landmark) in the background.

 Standing on home plate! Well, not the real one - that was ceremoniously removed at the end of the final game in '99 and installed at the Tigers' new home, Comerica Park. I was totally giddy, and still have clay from the baselines on my boots. Wheeeee!

On our way home, we drove past this and immediately went around the block for a closer look. It's called the Monumental Kitty!

Not pictured: the squishy baby girl I spent an hour with before her mama came out of surgery; the delicious paczki (kind of a polish Super Donut) we picked up at a bakery in Hamtramck (with two days til Fat Tuesday, there was quite a line, and a security guard, too); and the bottles of Mountain Dew Live Wire that got me through a 24 hour labor on 3 hours' sleep.

5/52: 52 Weeks of Happy!

Successfully color-matching yarn on the computer (after having lost the label months and months ago) - now I can finish this sweater!(That color is Atlantic, if you're curious.)

A big cup of coffee with some homemade peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Yummmmmmm.

Getting back out on the ice last night for the first time in over a year! I wasn't out there for ten minutes before long-forgotten muscles started speaking up...and I also had a new bruise by then, too, lol. Worth it, it was a great save!

More highlights of the week: chicken shwarma sandwiches with very garlicky dipping spread from the middle eastern restaurant up the street; making a teeny-tiny student loan payment; watching a client with severe pain/restricted movement one year post-knee-replacement begin to improve; looking at next week's schedule and seeing eleven clients booked...with ten open spots left!

All in all, a very good week! Except for my poor mom getting pneumonia. But she's feeling a little better every day!