..Ok, Go.

PensiveGirl tweeted this earlier today. I’ve watched it several times, and it is just one of those fantastic visual-audio combos that makes your brain hum, your toes tap, and your soul soar. They took embedding down, so you can see the video on YouTube here.

The song is called “This Too Shall Pass.” When the words were sung – “Let it go… this too shall pass,” I felt tears in my eyes, because it’s so simple. We burrow and fret and worry and panic and stress and rail at the day and the day..passes. And it felt like advice I got a few years ago, advice I couldn’t believe or accept at the time, from my dying father trying to reassure me that in the end, it would all be ok. I love him every bit today as I did when he was alive. I marvel at that in part because I didn’t think it possible.

And I still marvel at the power in sound and words that can evoke such feeling. With a marching band to boot.

I know, like many other people, that I will be very glad to see the door close on 2009 tonight. Can’t say that I feel that way about the entire decade, of course, because countless wonderful things have happened in my life over the past ten years. I just see 2009 as a year that brought more challenges and strife than I cared to have. I shut the door on people (some shut the door on me!), I lost my job (but gained another!), and had lots of job stress and a couple really scary health scares (bronchitis, my eyes).

All of that said, though, and some of my negative thoughts about the year, I will say that this has been the year of contradictions. My job (that I lost) depressed me beyond belief – but then I got a new one that renews and energizes me.  Unemployment depressed me, but I reconnected and made new connections and feel more ensconced with fantastic, smart, creative people than any year before. And the mack-daddy depression of them all, the grief that never leaves me, my father’s death, that got better. I no longer feel like I am the lone ox, pulling the yurt with a tribe of nomads trampling it as I strain to put one foot in front of the other. There are days with great sadness, melancholy, and some tears, but there isn’t the sense of toppling over the edge into an abyss. Time truly works wonders.

I know that in time, some of the anger and frustration I absorbed and carried this year will also fade. But now, in the moment? I’ve got a special Fuck You to a few people, and while I don’t think they read my blog, but if they do? They should be bright enough to know it’s meant just for them. Enjoy, motherfuckers. Karma’s a bitch.

As for the rest of you twatweasels I know, love and look forward to laughing with next year? Happy New Year, and I love ya. Thanks for reading and all the comments. 2010 is gonna rock.

Yesterday was one of those blue-ribbon, splendiferous days that you thought may have faded into the naivete of youth, when birthdays brought a new bicycle and summers were long unending days of sunshine and grass, an enormous hiatus from school and responsibility. Yesterday was absolutely fantastic. Yesterday, I accepted a job. A job I want, a job I’m looking forward to going to, and I’ll start out part-time in a couple of weeks. A couple months after that, I’ll be full-time. But it wasn’t just the job. It was so many things. Lunch with two dear friends. Then I went to the grocery store, where one woman stopped to compliment me on my wrap (the background image on this blog, in fact), and another woman came over and we had a nice chat about yarn, knitting, local yarn stores, and Ravelry. She wasn’t familiar with a lot of the things I was talking about and scribbled notes on the back of her shopping list. My husband coming home and telling me he’s proud of me, reflecting on the life we’ve built together, and how we navigate the waters well together, because there have been dark, bad seas for both of us in our years together, and even in the bleakest hour, there is comfort in knowing you are not there alone. Later that night, we went out to dinner for crab legs, and while James was up getting dessert, the woman seated behind me started complimenting me on my shoes. (Dansko clogs, patent black leather) Random kind friendliness, piling onto the day. We decided to give the slots a shot, and the wheels spun and the bells rang and then my $20 became $40 (being the nervous nelly gambler, I immediately cashed out). It was a day that felt like it glowed, with no nicks or dings or scratches, one that had only improved each hour it was here, and it was so very good.

Many blessings to count. Happy Thanksgiving.

Ten years ago I met this guy named James for coffee at Broadway Cafe – my standard internet-dating vetting venue – and I think it’s working out. Since today’s our six-year wedding anniversary! Wahoo!

Since then, we’ve amassed a lot of memories and references that only best friends can have with each other.  Laughter and music are the core threads that glide us through, and when all else fails, we have three goofy ass dogs who are always good for comic relief.  I love the family we’ve become.

To quote Freddy Mercury (and what good marriage doesn’t include a dead gay rock-n-roll idol’s wisdom? NONE I tell you. ),

Ooh you’re the best friend that I ever had
I’ve been with you such a long time
You’re my sunshine and I want you to know
That my feelings are true
I really love you
Oh you’re my best friend

Here’s to the next ten, my friend. Love you to the moon and back.

Boy, I’ve been having a doozy of it. Between workload & being sick (hey! I think I’ve recovered – last night was the first night of sleeping all the way through the night without coughing!) – I’ve just been an extra bit stressy. Which makes my temper a bit shorter, and it makes me move into blunt whack-a-mole mode.  When there’s a ton to do, and other people are dilly-dallying or unclear about their direction, I find myself leaning more towards R. Lee Ermey. So far, nobody’s decided to off themselves in the latrine, so that’s good.  (this would be me making a reference to Full Metal Jacket, btw. I’m sure my husband will chuckle, knowing I just finally saw that movie in the past year.  And he did just remind me this week that I am no Stanley Kubrick.)

SO, even though there are plenty of things that stress me out & piss me off, let’s talk about the latest new thing that happened today. Some douchebag decided to put THEIR extra trash bag in OUR driveway. We already had two bags out, and since we didn’t plan for Douchebag Drop-Off Day, we didn’t put a trash sticker on the third bag because IT WASN’T THERE. But now we had to haul it back from the curb and wait until next week.

Oh. Yeah. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?  I looked at the bag. If there was any indication that there was something in that trash bag to indicate who tossed it there, I would have been in it in two seconds flat.  Not sure what would have happened after that, if I’d have actually taken my R. Lee Ermey act all the way up to someone’s front door, but I sure enjoyed thinking about it.  At the very least, I’d have returned it to them. The nerve!

Tomorrow is a big meeting-day, and then I should get a bit of a reprieve. There’s still plenty of work, but we should get a little breathing room on these high-pressure, hulking huge deadlines. It’s nice to be busy, as long as it stays below the panic line. Spring Break is next week, we’ll be getting some fishing in, I’ll still be working, but there are all sorts of demarcations in time that remind me things are shifting – the time change, the daffodils in the front yard, just waiting to explode, the seedlings under the grow lights winding and waving in nature’s destined journey towards the light, roots expanding and threading into the soil below.

Oh, and if you want to weep from laughter, and you didn’t see Letterman’s Stupid Pet Tricks last night, it was utterly priceless. Bailey, Play Dead. (I hope this works – couldn’t get it to embed.)

I could hardly catch my breath, I was laughing so hard. (I think it was the :second: playing dead that was so funny, like, OH!oh, hell, no treat yet? OK, I’ll play dead again real quick, mister.) I also really like it when it’s apparent that Dave is genuinely amused. Almost as much as I love  hearing my husband and I laughing uproariously, together. By golly, I almost forgot about that damned bag of trash.

A couple weeks ago, I found myself at a Starbucks, around 8 o’clock in the evening, and as much as I love my lattes, that’s just too late for me to consume caffeine. (Yes, I know, I can get decaf, but where’s the fun in that? Plus, I wanted to try something new.)

So I ordered the Berry Chai Infusion.

Oh. Mah. God. Tart but sweet, spicy and smooth. Love at first sip.

I decided I had to figure out a way to recreate this at home. My first attempt was so-so, but my second attempt is pretty darned good. And a lot fewer calories, to boot! I’m slurping one right now, and it’s de-lish.

You can make your own, too! I’m not much on exacting specifics, but here’s what I did:

8-10 cups hot water

3 Tazo Black Chai tea bags

3 Celestial Seasonings Wild Berry Zinger tea bags

8 single-serve packets of Splenda

Pomegranate-Black Currant Juice (We had some Old Orchard juice I’d scored on clearance at Target, seemingly because they’re not making it anymore. Their Healthy Balance line looks like they’ve got some great blends that would work just as well. You want something with a tart base, and a blended juice tempers one flavor from dominating. And, bonus, 1/3 the calories! I’ll probably try the Pom-Blueberry-Acai next.)

Place the tea bags in a teapot, cover with hot water. Add the Splenda packets (or wait & do this after you taste-test), and allow to steep. When the tea is sufficiently strong, pour about 1/3-cup to 1/2-cup of juice into your mug, fill to the top with tea, and then microwave 30-60 seconds so the whole drink is piping hot.

Bravo Tazo, baby! You just hacked in. Let me know how yours goes! I think you could try all kinds of variations, with the constant being the black chai, and a tart juice.

1. The Crazy Cat Lady across the street is having a new roof put on. I thought that was odd, and the Wo confirmed it. There’s a reason you do roofs in the blazing heat of summer, because shingles have a sticky strip that needs to melt & adhere to the one below it, and if they don’t seal, all kindsa crap can get up in there & then the next big storm comes along and poof! The roof! The roof! The roof is in your yard! But anyway, she parked herself out there in a lawn chair, behind the big-ass dumpster with a beer, and was having a cackling ol’ time with the laborers. God, she is so crazy. We are just hoping that the enormous satellite dish that came off the roof goes INto the dumpster. Seriously. It’s like the size of the ones they use to talk to the moon. You stay classy, Crazy Cat Lady!

2. The dogs are not happy with the laboring going on across the street. Nor are they happy with the new neighborhood scallywag dogs, which seem to be a pair of mutts, one resembles a pit-bull-hound-somethin’ or other, and the other looks like the progeny of an overgrown long-haired dachsund that ravished a chihuahua one late summer afternoon. Good lord that little dog is a shit, running everywhere, barking this high-pitch trill the entire time, and his ears and tail stand upright (like a chihuahua’s) but they’re fringed with long fur, so this thing just looks ridiculous. Tripper tried to clamber OVER the fence to get at it, and boy am I glad we caught him in the act, because that would have just been awful. I think he was under the impression it was new, mutant breed of squirrel, and it HAD TO BE STOPPED.

3. The Great Kitchen Re-Organization was finally completed this afternoon. There are still portions that need cleaning & sorting, but the back breakfast nook/pantry area is clean, organized and whittled down. It is beautiful.  I threw away some old canisters that I liked, but knew no matter how much I lied to myself, just weren’t going to be used. And I sort of chortled nervously, like the Hoarding Police were going to come along and ticket me for Wastefulness. Now we have all the items we use the most in the most accessible places, and I discovered I have three (3) springform pans, none of which were thrown away, because they are all different sizes and they are each extremely beautiful. They’re next to the two different bundt pans, not to be confused with the mini-bundt pan muffin tin, or the daisy-cake pattern pan.  I love all my unitasking pans equally, yes I do. I stood by the back door and admired my work for several minutes tonight, because it was a lot of dirt, sweat & pitching out of things.

4. Speaking of stopping to admire your work. When I taught Amy to knit, I told her that when she came to the end of the row, to stop and admire what she had done.  A little bit later on, she asked me why I said to do that. I tell all my knitting students to do this, as they’re trying something new. Even though it’s just a row, it’s progress, often combined with an advancement of skill, and it should be recognized and rewarded. Even after all these years of knitting, I still love to stop and look at the fabric, hanging from my needles, to see what I have created with sticks and string.

5. The black-eyed pea dish from yesterday? Beans were still crunchy this morning. After 24 hours in a crock pot, on low. So I cranked it up to high and hoped for the best. They did finally cook, and were spicy & savory, but man, there was a lesson learned there, not a day into the new year: BUY CANNED.  Or at least do the boil-soak-overnight thing.

6. I’m going to try and tackle a little bit of organization up in the craft room this weekend; that was my original goal for my vacation, but with the acquisition of the fryer & french-fry cutter, the mess off the kitchen got bumped up the list. I’m glad it worked out that way, because the craft room can still be attacked in smaller chunks of time, but the kitchen area, with the dogs going out into the yard, needed to be finished – and gives me great satisfaction, since I do see it every day. Sigh. I don’t ever get as much done as I hope I will.

7.  I always have over-ambitious (unrealistic) goals for what I’ll accomplish – I’ve done that with knitting projects, too. Going out for dinner & hanging with friends? I simply must bring at least two projects, and perhaps a third, JUST IN CASE. Just in case we’re held hostage? Or snowed in? Or perhaps I fall headfirst into a large pile of cocaine, and consequently find myself knitting at warp speed, confused (but delighted) by my pratfall. I have, at long last, resurrected the Rambling Rows afghan – I’m on block 30, out of 46, and I realized from my Rav queue, I started this sucker over 2 years ago. So I’d like to finish it up while it’s still chilly in the house (it’s very cumbersome as a take-along project, and it’s also made of wool, so summer knitting on it doesn’t fly). Of course, I’ve also started a scarf, and committed to starting another one (and finishing it by the end of the month) in a Loopy Ewe KAL. Suddenly my Scarface scene doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, does it? (J/K! No-no up your nose.)

Tha’s all I’ve got for now! Enjoy the weekend!

….Same As The Old Year….to paraphrase The Who, singing about something we ALL wish for ourselves, not to be fooled (again).

I rang in the new year by calming down three extremely pissed-off, barking black labs, who were certain we were under siege from The Enemy, as fireworks and god-knows-what-else exploded near and far from our house. I also was tending to the largest batch of crack Chex Mix I’ve ever made. Actually, the only batch I’ve ever made, but since the Wo was eating it for breakfast this morning when I stumbled out, and immediately asked me what in the hell I put in it to make it so full of WIN, I can only say, hey, I rocked in the New Year’s Chex Mix, baby. (The “secret”? Uh, half-again as much Worcestershire sauce as the traditional recipe calls for. We love us the nummeh brown winegar sauce.)

I followed up that winning first act with a breakfast of homemade Prune Cake from the Pioneer Woman, and do not let the name fool you. You will get on your knees and pray you’ll get another piece after you try the first one.  I served it with a tall glass o’ milk, and a shot of Reddi-whip on the side. Startin’ the New Year off RIGHT!

Then I threw together a batch of slow-cooker black-eyed peas, and that recipe lied to me about using dried beans. I thought I was in good shape, but 13 hours later, those suckers still have some crunch to ‘em, so that’s going to be dinner tomorrow. Fortunately, we weren’t particularly hungry, because we got together with the Wo’s immediate family & ate at Ted’s Montana Grill. Deeeelish.  My brother-in-law got the Kitchen Sink Bison Burger, and good lord, that was the craziest damn sammich I’ve ever seen. It had ..well, yeah, everything on it, including a slice of ham and a fried egg! He loved it.

Before the Wo crashed last night, we spent some time playing our newest Wii game, Lego Indiana Jones and the something or other. Oh mah god, it’s pretty damned fun for a two-person game. We have to work co-operatively, though initial observations showed we were utterly incapable of it, as he would whip me into pieces, and I, once rebuilt, would attack him with my shovel. I noticed, playing the role of sidekick, that I got stuck with a lot more grunt work. Mostly because I had the shovel. Which is quite effective on enormous spiders, too. Anyway, we laughed our heads off, which was the goal.

End the year laughing, begin the next one with Chex Mix and Prune Cake.

We rock.

Happy New Year. Actually, I’m pretty sure this one will be a lot better than the last one.

For about a month now, I’ve been mentally composing a post. It was roughly titled, “Things I’ve Learned This Year”.  Here are the notables.

1. Quite a bit of learning happened at work. Since we like to keep our job, we won’t write all that out. But I learned a lot about people, about being a manager, and about what is necessary, even if it isn’t always fun. Kind of like life.

2. I learned who my friends are. Some walked away, some set the ramparts on fire, some just drifted. That said, many stayed, some new people showed up, and I made some new friends. There was lots of learning. As I discover each year, I love my husband even more than I knew I could.

3. I finally pulled my shit together and got my own server for my web domain. Oh mah god. Quite the process!  But I really am happy to have my very own spot on the net, and how much the process taught me. The Learning. It is a veritable theme!

4. I feel like I’ve reached the next level (of which I presume there are countless)  in understanding my grief, understanding the why and what and an acceptance in general that I’ll never fully understand it. I’ve also reached, just recently, a very significant point of understanding in my life, as I look back on the years, the things my parents did and didn’t do, how those choices shaped all of us, but particularly me. Enlightenment is not always easy to climb to, but oh what a view. I also revealed the secret to understanding women.

5. I lost my post-holiday shopping craze. I didn’t go out the day after Thanksgiving, and I didn’t go out the day after Christmas. I did, however, go to both CostCo and Target today, New Year’s Eve, and thought I was hallucinating by the last leg of that journey. These trips only serve to underscore just how much I love the internets.

6. I spread my wings and started selling some crafty things – namely, DPN holders through local yarn shops & The Loopy Ewe. I also produced some “knitter” decals, and learned that buying in bulk is great at CostCo, but not always with new business ventures! (Feel free to buy 15 or 20!)

7. Speaking of wings, I got back in the swing of flying this summer, for work, and most everyone agrees, flying isn’t the most fun thing to do these days, especially as a plusher individual. Another fear faced & conquered!

8. Discovering the joy of Social Networking. Not only for my job, but as a labeled social butterfly at an early age, I do love Facebook & Plurk & even a little Twitter. I love trying out new things, and yet there is always the need for balance, since all of those little devils will suck your time like nobody’s business. Through Facebook, I also became highly addicted to PackRat, until the devs changed the entire game so they could make a buck off it. On the plus side, I got hours of my life back!

9. The older I get, the more torqued I become about political things. Between the election and our mayor, my electoral college of nerves reached a frazzling point. I wrote my city council member, I voted, I fought with my husband.  My guy won, but much remains to be resolved here in Kansas City. Grrrrr……

10. I’ll end with a recent, fantastic experience. I teach a lot of knitting, and always learn something from my students in return. I’ve taught a lot of people to knit over the years, but this week, I had the honor of teaching my dear friend Beth’s daughter Amy how to knit.  She is a bright, quick study, and it was fantastic to see the moment of comprehension, as the movement and process clicked in her head and her hands. I understood two things in that moment – the fleeting but motivating experiences my husband must have as a teacher, and a smidgen of the journey parents experience. Just one tiny slice in time, but richer by far than most.

FYI, she doesn’t want to stop knitting. We went to lunch and she couldn’t wait to pull her yarn out and continue. (Apologies for the cameraphone pic…)

Happy New Year.

Thanks for sticking with me. I love your comments, and I appreciate the kindnesses, shared laughs and understanding you give me.

May next year bring you learning, wisdom, joy and happiness. If you’re a knitter, may there always be plenty of yarn and other knitters to laugh with you. If you don’t knit, well, you should learn. Learning, it seems,  is what it’s all about.

…But I keep hearing an old-timey version of a Ralph Stanley song running through my head, specifically the refrain, “The darkest hour is just before dawn”.

Now, those who know me, and even those who don’t, yet come here for all the sparkling Grief Blogging might worry that I’m in a depression. Fear not. Well, I am, a little, but really, anyone over the age of 14 is bound to get the blues this time of year, what with all the manufactured joy and pre-packaged expectations that come with “The Holidays”. Nope. I’m in the darkest hour because I am cleaning and reorganizing all the kitchen accoutrements. Holy shitballs, Mabel, this is a Task and A Half! And basically, with most un-cluttering and organizational projects, you have to explode the whole thing before you can put it in order. Right now, Houston, we have esplosions.

This morning, I moseyed down to Index, a restaurant supply store in the River Market, and boy, it’s easy to drop your whole wallet there. It gets hypnotizing, as you walk around looking at all these…things… you start to think, “Well of COURSE I could use a dozen of those little stainless cups they serve ketchup in at McCoy’s,” and you catch yourself mentally visualizing and measuring your oven, just in case this enormous cookie sheet could fit in it. And of course you’d need the matching Silpat. I caught myself eyeballing a sugar pourer. It was only $1.50. I was certain that would be useful. I could throw the old one away. Update the sugar pouring aspect of my life.  You wouldn’t believe the siren songs I hear in my head in that store.  Anyhoo, I did NOT buy anything off my list, my goal was to get some large foodservice-grade containers to put baking supplies in (flour, sugar) and then at least one more big one for rice. This is the downside of the CostCo shopping – enormous bags of flour and rice, and where in the hell do you put them? Shove ‘em in the back room off the kitchen, that’s where. Alongside last winter’s birdseed, which, upon unearthing, I later caught Tripper EATING. He is such a motherfucking black lab it makes me crazy. Birdseed. To him, it must have been some gourmet trail mix. (That is going out to the greenhouse. I did not buy a tub for it.)

So now my fantastic birthday-present-to-myself from this summer, the KitchenAid 6, sits on top of a chrome cart, and stacked in glorious organization under it are the flour, sugar, powdered sugar and on the bottom shelf, rice. I will be able to just pull the cart in to the main kitchen area & use the mixer on the cart, instead of having to lift and move the beast onto the countertop (because it’s so tall, it blocks the cabinet doors. Yep.)  And this one beacon of organization and containment is in the middle of the dining room, and its strangeness is making Suzy crazy, so she’s been lying here GROWLING at it the whole time I’ve been typing. Dogs. Thank god they can’t drive, they’d lose their minds.

OH, but see, there’s more. There’s a huge big ol’ reason all of this is happening, besides the fact I’m on vacation, and alternating between lolling about & knitting and being productive. I got a really kickass Christmas present. Two, in fact. One from my MIL (Momma Linda) and one from my husband. We draw names in his family, and she got mine. And she has heard me bitch and pick fights with said husband over …wait for it…. a french fry cutter. He has refused to buy it for me because it is…impractical. A unitasker. No. I am not married to Alton Brown, but sometimes it sounds that way! I wanted one because the cheapy one I  had broke, and I wanted a solid, restaurant-quality, never-gonna-break sort of french fry cutter. DO NOT ASK ME how many times a year I make french fries. Because that is not the point. Here was something I genuinely wanted. For years. It started to take on a lifeblood all its own.  James would complain about how hard I am to buy for, and I would always look at him and say, “French fry cutter.” Yet he refused to get it. (There were arguments made about our walls and the fact it has to be mounted to one, blah blah blah DETAILS, people. Trivial details.) So, since my MIL and I are not unlike each other, she went and ordered me the mac-daddy french-fry cutter to beat the band. Doesn’t have to be mounted on a wall, either. And when she informed my husband of this gift, he knew his goose was cooked. Or tater was sizzlin’, whichever metaphor you prefer. Because in the past – and as recently as last week – others had offered to pool resources, to go around him, to buy it for me. I refused. I purposefully never told my father, because he would have had it shipped express the next day to make a point.  This was my lynchpin. My sand in his Vaseline.  So the Wo knew he had to do something. And he ordered a twin deep-fat fryer from CostCo. Yes. That clanging noise was everyone’s arteries slamming the doors on crazy. CRAZY. But he had to get with the program or have it forever held against him, and it has made me laugh repeatedly since Christmas day, because it’s partly an O’Henry short story, partly a clash of personalities and priorities, and through it all, completely filled with love.

Anyway, now, all this stuff has to go somewhere, and some things need to be removed, since they are ever-so-rarely used. And I’m taking FULL advantage of the no-limit-on-trash-bags opportunity this week, going a little crazy with the tossing, but it feels good.  With the bonus that now I can have my very own State Fair in the kitchen anytime I want.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The sun is slowly sinkin’
The day’s almost gone
Still darkness falls around us
And we must journey on
The darkest hour is just before dawn
The narrow way leads home
Lay down your soul at jesus’ feet
The darkest hour is just before dawn

Like a shepherd out on the mountain
A-watchin’ the sheep down below
He’s coming back to claim us
Will you be ready to go
The darkest hour is just before dawn

The narrow way leads home
Lay down your soul
Let jesus in
The darkest hour is just before dawn
The darkest hour is just before dawn

For everyone who found their heart aching over the holidays, just remember…. you are not alone.