Poor, Neglected Bloggie.
Hi! So, sorry about the crazy yesterday. All is well. Blood sugar stabilized. Relish jar eventually conquered. I’d forgotten to break the vacuum seal before putting it in the fridge after grocery shopping. Darn thermodynamics.
It’s been pretty quiet around here — mostly because I had have been working on my NaNo story in the evenings. Well, except for the last 2. Seems I’ve hit the fabled slump. Maybe I just missed knitting in the evenings.
I cast on for a 2nd sock at Berry’s the other night, and I finally had the dreaded experience that every in-the-round knitter warns about: I twisted the cast-on edge. Oh, the humanity! Oh, the amphibity! (rippit) I’m unenthusiastic about these socks anyway, so this didn’t help. I think from now on I’ll knit the first few rows of the cuff flat before I join them, then just seam that little bit with the tail.
We had a lovely visit with my brother earlier this month. He now lives, no kidding, on a tiny island in the intercostal waterway up in the panhandle. His wife has declared that if the conference transfers him to a new church in the next 5 years, he’ll have to leave them behind, because she’s not budging. They really have landed in paradise. Pokermon and I took the kids over the bridge to the gulf coast, and I soaked in sun and powdered-sugar sand and blue-green waves until I felt like I’d gotten a full-brain massage. I actually caught myself talking out loud, “Hello, Gulf of Mexico, I love you!” Overall, I prefer North Central Florida to the panhandle (fewer hurricanes and neo-cons), but I sure love re-visiting the Emerald Coast.
Anyway. Staying in D&K’s house, I couldn’t help noticing that every room was completely, unequivocally theirs, from the paint on the walls to the toys on the floor. Pictures, books, knick-knacks, closet contents, they all said, “D, K & nephews.” And I realized just how badly I need my own space back. I’ve thrown off most of the depression that tried to grab me this summer with nutritional supplements and sunshine (thank you, autumn!), but I’ve had this lingering patina of Blah that ties directly to displacement. I don’t have a place for everything (by a long shot). I keep shuffling my desk contents from one surface to another, because my desk is in storage. Our towels are stored on the bookshelf. Mom gave me a photo of her taken in September, and I’m delighted to have a souvenir of her smiling and functional and ALIVE. However, the only place to put it is in my bedroom, and I haven’t wanted Mom in my bedroom since puberty hit.
I must get out of here.
But I can’t go too far, because she just got diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. I haven’t even researched it yet. She shakes, it’s not caused by the anti-seizure meds she was on like we’d hoped, and medication controls it for the time being. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Anyway, declaring an end to our open-ended stay here has restored quite a bit of my focus and motivation. Alas that it’s tinged with a whopping big dose of guilt, because I’d told our tenants that they could stay an extra year, then Friday I announced, “whoops! Sorry guys, I’m a big fat liar. You don’t mind if I jerk you around, do you?” Berry, if you read this, I really am sorry.
Anyway, we can’t move back into our house in town. We outgrew it when Wakko was born, and it doesn’t have a safe yard for me to send them out to play in. Pokermon wants to rent a house for a few years so that the tenants can stay and we can let the real estate market recover some more before we sell. We’ll do that if we can find a place that meets my criteria for livability for what we can afford to spend on rent. From the poking around I’ve done, it looks pretty laughable. Our price range yields search results in duplexes near the university, trailer parks (I’ll live in a trailer, but not a trailer park), and houses in the high-crime district. Nuh-uh.
I told our realtor we’d likely be contacting her in March. But hey, something could turn up. Stranger things have happened.
Meanwhile, I’m actually glad all our Christmas decorations are in storage, because I’m seized with the longing to do crafty stuff with the kids. We’ll have home-made ornaments on the tree this year. Break out the pine cones, glitter, and paper-chains!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I’m thankful for a lot this year.
