Tit for Tat

So many nice comments on the pergola. Thank you thank you. And some that need answers, too.



I might plant a vine, I might not. See. My recent success with tomato growing at this altitude with this growing season has been because of that there cement patio! I plant my 'maters smack up next to it on the east side, where they are nice and toasty at night from the heat absorbed during the day. Also, they get...got...full sun all day. Probably not so much of that anymore, and I will have to see what effect that will have.



In reviewing the photos, I recognized how barren the place looks. Welcome to springtime in Colorado. We don't get off the ground until late May really. The patio will be surrounded by...stuff...green stuff...blooming stuff....come June. Just wait and see!



We had it built. And this is version 2. Initially...well...there was some blips in the communication apparently between the contractor and the laborer, but it was all put to right, and we got our decorative ends. I didn't get any photos of version 1, and we will still recommend the contractor. He got it all straightened out straight away.



Our house stands out in our sub-division because of the color. When we repainted about 4 years ago, we chose something besides the bland and tepid colors initially used by the builders. There is no mistaking which house is ours, and yes, we had approval from the HOA!



Liz...and anyone else...come over anytime to sit a spell for some spinning, knitting, glass of tea, or talking garden. There are chairs to go around.

Weekend Wrap-Up

Cold and drear, more so after a sunny and bright week, the weekend was not so much fun. I have some lilies of the valley coming on, and I notice my bleeding heart is getting ready to bloom. I want to get out and clean up, but it was just too cold.

Just not fair!

We did stop briefly at the Farmer's Market for it's first day...all bundled up, with promises of ending the excursion if I was too cold. But guess what the Market had Saturday?

Roving! Jacobs roving from a local grower (breeder? shepherd?)! How exciting for me! Almost as exciting as the almost for real tomatoes I bought.

Yeah. I know...I know...blah blah blah...more buying than knitting/spinning going on lately. So much for that little goal.

Also. We have a new addition.

Behold. The Pergola. Three years in the thinking, we finally took the plunge and it is built!

From below.

Side views.

Artsy effect with gloomy sky background.

As the day comes to a close, and I am winding down and gearing up for Monday, I hear Wonderful Guy remark that he hopes the birds don't abuse it. Now we didn't think about that part of it.

Spring!

Last weekend we had alot of snow slushy rainy stuff puddling up all over the place and getting in my shoes whenever I went out.

This week...high 70's, low 80's.

I have one word to say to that.

Green!  I think if I had something other to do that keep my head above water at my new old job, I would be out watching stuff grow, because I swear I could see it.

One of the things about where I am now working is the close accessibility to a great walking trail, which I frequented often during the times of trial and despair during the dee-vorce.  And again, during the courtship of Wonderful Guy and Best Dog Ever.

When I feel like I have things a bit under control, a bit more under control, I am so back there!

Unfortunately, it does not look like we will be enjoying lilacs this year.

I did have a nifty new laptop sitting in my cube after some training today!

Schweet!  I am back online!

New Routines

I am a creature of habit.

I have a morning routine that I like to follow without much deviation, at least until I have had my first cup of coffee, and exercised (most days).

I follow pretty much the same sequence of roads to work and home everyday, changing lanes to turn almost at the same place.  A detour will cause a flare of chagrin!

So here I am now finding myself...in between.

Not in between old routines and new habits, but old habits and older routines!

I follow an older route to work now, and park in the same place in the same parking lot.  There are different lab notebooks used...than used to be, but completed request forms are still the same, and filed the same place the same way...in the same useless manner!

New old co-workers are warning me about the new electronic document control system, but it is the same as at my recent previous employer, so I am one up on them.  There is some construction of walls redoing labs, painting, etc, so we are all on a level playing field there.

So much is familiar, but I am still outside my comfort zone.  I still don't have my routine.  I don't know what all is going to be expected of me.  I NEED THESE THINGS.

I NEED A COMPUTER IN MY CUBE!

Nothing for it, really, to get in the groove, except to keep at it.  The rest will come.

I'm Baaaaack!

Sort of.

I'm temp, so kind of a there, but not feeling.  I mean, how much do I really settle in?

But it's good to be back.

I know the bathroom!  I know the hallways!  I know half the people who I work with! (Which for someone who struggles with names is such a blessing!) I know which doors to come in and out of!

There has been and is some remodeling of the labs going on, but still...some of them are like....Home!

No computer yet.  A few days for that, but I bet it will be a new one, and not a thrown together leftover.  No badging to get in either.  All new techie fingerprint scanning opens the doors.

And when I got home...I found this!

Hand for scale.  This is my most tee tiniest and earliest birdiest iris!

Two days after snow, and I have a bloom and two buds!

I am one happy camper!

PS  Thanks, thanks, and thanks for all the well and good wishes from everyone!

Weekend Wrap-Up

"What am I going to wear for my first day on the new 'old job'?"

That occurred to me while Wonderful Guy and I were on the Bandit, motorcycling a bit to enjoy the beautiful day, after our spring snow storm of Friday and Saturday.

See. That's my problem. It's the same job, but not quite. It's with mostly the same people, but not all. It's not the same company, and certainly my status will be different.

Nothing like uncertainty to keep one on her toes. Keeps the mind sharp and focused. The senses alert. The stomach churning and the nights sleepless...

There is just enough familiarity to lull me into a false sense of calm. Then comes a wave of panicky lightheadedness...of thinking "You are starting a new job tomorrow, and you are not even getting READY! YOU NEED TO MAKE PLANS"

The place has undoubtably changed...what if what used to be the breakroom was part of the remodel? AGH! There goes my lunch routine...better plan to grab a bite out tomorrow at least.

What should I take? Mug? Periodic chart? Family photos? Chemistry books? Better to wait to see...

...where will I be sitting? As a temp, will I have my own computer? Probably. Surely. I hope so.

And what if the dress code policy has changed? Well. They should have told me! That's the rebel hippie in me coming out. I am wearing jeans. I do a fine job in jeans, and if they have a problem with jeans...well, then....I will wear something different on Tuesday...

Dear and gentle readers, you had no idea how neurotic I could be, did you? Except for Dearest Sister, that is, and Wisest Sister has surely had her glimpses.

I have had two dreams in the last four nights that I have been on my way to work on my first day, and could not get there. The roads were changed, or closed, or under construction. To my credit, I did not make Wonderful Guy follow my route to work on the Bandit today to assure me that I could get from here to there...

TGIF!

A bulleted post.

• My apologies.


• But it's succinct!


• We are in the middle of a big flippin' wet sloppy snow storm.


• Again.


• I am finie with my old job (and all the attending headaches).


• I already miss my old peeps.


• The old new job starts Monday.
• I am looking forward to seeing my old new peeps.


• I hope I can still wear jeans. (I forgot to ask.)


• Lunch with Grandbebe Girl today!


• An lys is closing up shop, and guess what I did?


• You are right.


• Photos to follow, along with BSJs for the new grandbebes.


• I am within spitting distance of being done with the singles spinning of the alpaca fleece. (Get it...spitting distance....ar ar ar!)
• I have been knitting knothing but dishclothes in an effort to focus on the spinning.
• Seven have been completed in the past 10 days.

That is all.

H is for...

...Hair.

And being done with it!

Dearest Sister and myself in our dancing regalia...yes, we danced...and regaled...after a fashion.

What it was way back.

Still blonde, but not so naturally.

What it used to be at much trouble and expense.

Solid silver...at least that is my term for it!

And now....au naturelle!

I have been growing out FOREVER! Or for a year and a half, at least.

I have a couple of stories about how slowly I believe my hair grows, about the growing out experience, and about my length judging-impaired hair stylist, in these various links.

About 10 days ago, when it was time for a trim, I told my old friend, the stylist, to layer it up, and get the rest of it off. No matter the pain of layers (and I believe them to be a pain), no matter the inconvenience of hair shorter than I like (and it is), no matter that I am helpless, clueless, and inept in any styling on my own beyond...basically what I know....I said 'take it off, take it all off.'

Since that fateful day, it has not looked like the above photo.

I have had many compliments. Alas, I do not feel deserving of them.

I feel my hair is flippy. I feel my pony tail is full of sticky up ends. I keep seeing, out of the corner of my eye, the short ends at my cheeks and think someone is there!

Ah well. A necessary process to the desired end. But I know how long it will take to grow out....

Ch-ch-changes

It's my last week at this job, and I have been handing off duties. Not difficult, nor tedious, but odd. I take pride in doing my job, and even doing it last week, ostensibly for the last time, it was very strange to think...it was the last time.

So now mostly after tomorrow, when we finish up, it will be someone else's task. However they do it, it will be theirs to do.

And come Monday, I will be back at my new place, with all it's changes since I left there four years ago. I have had no anxiety or apprehension about the new old job...until this week.

Now I am sort of freakin' out.

I think it is more about changing out the familiar for the unknown, even though I know alot about where I am going and what I am going to be doing.

Strange, huh? Not really.

I have had a pretty light load for quite a while. Really busy at times, but other times maybe needing to gauge my efforts so I didn't end up with nothing to do completely. Also, times have been very, very flexible. Really, when one isn't getting paid regularly, the motivation to be on time, or to stick around until 5...well, it wanes. Especially after promises of compensation are not held to.

I will be working as a temp, being paid hourly, and being paid very well hourly, and it will make a difference when I show up and when I leave. Also, while I look forward to getting my edge back in the lab, it will be a challenge. I hope I can meet it.

And I believe the time is right for this change. The old place...I don't think I can stick it out any longer.

In other news, Grandbebe Girl and her parents came over for Easter brunch. While she didn't bring her birthday hand knit Easter Eggs, she was wearing her Baby Surprise Jacket. Her momma tells me she wears it alot. What. A. Charge. Knitting something that gets used...wow. Also, I hear tell the baby bed has been unfolded and remade into her 'big girl', completely tricked out with the quilt handmade by Dearest Sister and myself.

She loves the things we make for her!

More Spring Doings

Yesterday I changed the bedroom to it's spring dress.

I know. I really can't believe it myself, but it's true. My bedroom has two sets of outfits, and I am pretty rigorous in my switching out of them in the fall and the spring.

I may be channeling Martha Stewart just a little.

Window swag, area rug, dust ruffle, quilt, and pillows in shams, all go from russets, browns, and blues, to lilacs, greens and ecrus. I don't know that I have ever really used the word ecru in a sentence. Or russet. Except with potato. And maybe not even then.

I do have more to say about these particular pillow shams. They are recycled from tied quilts that Deeply Missed and Dearest Sisters made for the Daughters one Christmas. Used well and well loved, I untied and ripped out the stitching. I quilted in a cross-hatch pattern and, following and adapting a pattern from the internet, I made the shams. I like that I have re-used them.

Anyway. Best Dog Ever sleeps next to the bed, and Phoebe, the cat, stays safe from the Grand-Pup and the pink medicine and many other scary things under the bed. Both of these things lead to a great amount of pet hair on the dust ruffle. A dust ruffle is a fearsome thing to iron after washing.

No more. This past winter, Wonderful Guy and I bought the wondrous, even magical!, steamer. He was all about clothes! No more ironing! I was thinking knitting and blocking...and dust ruffles and window swags and table clothes...and clothes, too, but I have my priorities.

Yesterday the dust ruffle was de-wrinkled in short order, and our boudoir is ready for the season in it's spring finery.

My mother would probably just choke. Except for the pillow shams.

Random Firings

I finally finished my latest book. A good read, a long read, but won't re-read. Down to the shelf to be re-cycled back to the FOL. What will I read next?!?

I am knitting dishclothes. I have three of them almost finished, all but the garter stitch grafting. Ahhhh...immediate gratification after the MLCB. All that new yarn, and I am knitting with dishclothe cotton. Go figure.

While carrying the dishclothes with me, I snapped a size seven needle. Into 3 pieces. Don't ask me how. That leaves me with...one 10 inch sz seven. I have probably 9 pair of size six, and 12 pair of size eight. And, now, one SINGLE size seven needle. I finished the last dishclothe with one seven and one six.

Quilting on the GBII quilt progresses nicely.

The baby alpaca fleece is washed. And teased. And all carded. I have a basket full of rolags to spin. One basket. Then I will have completely processed one whole raw fleece from start to finish.

Wonderful Guy and I have a three day weekend ahead.

The snow is mostly gone, and things are greening, and spring bulbs are popping. Not so much in my yard. I am enjoying others fall planning. I have very few spring bulbs. By fall, I am totally past thinking...hmmm....what shall I plant for next year? Then come spring, I am all thinking, why didn't I plant some bulbs last fall?

Every year I think that. And I will probably do the same this year.

The week I start my new job, we are getting a pergola built over our patio. I love stacking challenges!

New Year's Goal Number Whatever

"Knitting down the yarn stash, and getting some of the fiber stash spun up, too."

Or some such verbage....

The MLCB and the entrelac shawl did very well for the first, not to mention the MIL scarf.

Really well, as a matter of fact. I think the total knit down hovered around 21 balls/skeins for the first project, 12 smallish balls for the second, and 3 skeins for the third.

Whee!

Also, I have finished washing and teasing the baby alpaca, and can see the end of spinning my first fleece. Not the knitting, but the spinning.

So far, so good.

But then I found this.

Noro Taiyo - 40% Cotton, 30% Silk, 15% Wool, and 15% Nylon (1100 yds, enough for something sweet!)

The lys worker whispered 'this batch is mispriced...'

Then this happened....

Textiles A Mano - 100% wool (1500 yds, I am thinking maybe a sweater.)

The other lys in town had a grand re-opening after a wonderful remodel.

Textiles A Mano - 100% Silk (a scarf for moi.)

I found all this at a great discount. A really great discount.

Textiles A Mano - 50% Silk, 50% Wool (socks, of course)

The fleece and fiber I found in February has already been spoken of.

I have never spun suri before. I hope I can!

However, I found this suri roving for $3/oz. 10.4 ounces! In Old Town Fort Collins, no less. A very unlikely place to find suri roving, I must say...and marked down. Sweet.

So....

Any one keeping score? How am I doing?

Finding My Instincts

That’s only part of this story.

Finding my instincts, and trusting them, and then following them after a lifetime of not believing in myself is unsure ground.

Growing up, I didn’t know much of what was going on. Others needed to be trusted for that, and I was supposed to do as I was told. If I thought something might be haywire, or off track, or maybe a good thing to do, but grown-ups (or anyone bigger/older/more intimidating) could tell me different, well, that was that. End of story. What I knew or thought didn’t count as much as what others knew or thought.

I went along. No need for instincts. I just listened, and did as I was told, and caused the least trouble…mostly. Seemed like when I didn’t follow along, when I broke out of doing as I was told, serious repercussions seemed to reinforce how much better the other way seemed to be.

Lately, and yes, since the life changing opportunity of the dee-vorce, one of my twelve step lessons has been that of listening to MY heart, hearing MY instincts, and recognizing my own inner voice.

Then…in the belief that I can know what is right for me, following those instincts.

Yowza. Thinking for myself. Means I am responsible for me. Means I am responsible! Means I can do it.

And I can.

So I have alluded to ...over the last year and a half...about my work and the attendant stresses. It has been a tough road of lay-offs, late paychecks, people leaving, and chapter 13 bankruptcy. I have stuck it out, and without putting out a resume for a very long time.

Following my instincts? Or sticking my head in the sand? I can do denial, too. Oh, I can do denial very well, indeed.

Finally last November, I decided my instincts were telling me to ramp it up a bit. Over the last couple months, I looked at some websites, touched some bases, and talked to some former co-workers. I scored a couple of interviews, and while there wasn’t a job offer, each brought something that I could hold on to.

I heard that someone remembered the grace with which I handled the day I was laid off four years ago.

I heard ‘You can do this job’ from a former co-worker that I admired and respected, when I was intimidated by the prospective position.

I needed to hear these things. It is one scary job market out there, and add to that being…uh...experienced…and silvery haired…well, suffice it to say, there are a lot of young bucks to compete with these days. And not a lot of positions to go around.

Then, in filling out an application, when I was asked for references, I thought to myself, I need to verify that those folks still are willing (after all this time) to...reference me, and that I have their current contact info...blah blah blah…and so I did.

See. Instincts! And following them!

One of those references has called me. Seems he has a job that I might be suited for…if I am interested.

In town.
Working with, and for, some of the best managers/mentors I ever worked for, and with.

I will be on a temp basis for a while, working towards regular, but I am just looking at that as thinking outside the box…as a bridge from here to there.

I gave my 2 weeks notice today. (And that's my news.)

Spring?

This is from Snow #1

3/26/09

This is from Snow #2

4/4/09

On the upside, we need the moisture. We are way behind, and I don't want to do the rationing thing for watering the yard.

I made it to my lys and spent money like I am celebrating...which I am. I bought yarn for 40% off, getting ymmy stuff I have not bought because of the usual cost. Wait til you see. Oh, I already have photos! I am just pacing my posts....

Also, it is Grandbebe Girls birthday #2 and we are going to go celebrate.

News

That I can’t share just yet. Stay tuned. It’s good stuff.

So it’s the weekend. Guess what I get to do. If the weather is nice, I might get to go to the auto show. I really love Wonderful Guy. Only Step Son may go, too. It will be a fun outing, if the weather holds. For them, the cars. For me, with them. A trip to Denver means knitting time…

Also, one of the lyses is having a SALE! That will be fun, and since I have a little bittie thing to celebrate (see above news), I maybe will have to buy just a little something for me.

And it is Grandbebe Girl’s 2nd birthday. There will be a barbeque, and I will give her a basket full of knittie eggs. Just in time for Easter! She was over the other evening while her parents celebrated their anniversary. We had a grand time, obviously.

I have washed the last of the baby alpaca, and have been spinning when I haven’t been quilting on Grandbebe Girl 2’s quilt. By golly, I think I am going to get it all spun up before the Estes Park Wool Market. I have done so good knitting down my stash this year (thank you, MLCB!), I am pumped to spin that stash down, too.

But…as I spin that down…the yarn stash climbs back up…hmmmm…what a conundrum.

In other knitterly knews…I knit up a Jayhawk finger puppet for a co-worker (who says the Jayhawk will defeat his zombie finger puppets.) (Of course.) and some dishcloths. So tiny they are.

And we may get snow tonight/tomorrow. We desperately need the moisture. I am sorely in need of spring.

G is for...

...Greensburg.

Home of the World's Largest Hand Dug Well, and Largest Pallasite Meteorite!

My mother's family homesteaded just a few miles southeast of Greensburg, Kansas at the turn of the last century. I was born in the local hospital, and spent my grade school years there. All my family, from my grandfather's generation through my older siblings, graduated from Greensburg High School.

I learned to ride a bike around the Big Well Park. I won blue ribbons and a Grand Champion ribbon (I'll have you know!) for a sewing project (a pleated skirt and a crop top) in 4-H at the County Fair one year. I won red ribbons for my chocolate chip cookies. (Go figure!) Momma taught knitting classes in the back room of the Ben Franklin 'Five&Dime' on Main Street. I learned to knit, to sew, to swim in the BEST. SWIMMING POOL. EVER! and the value of a library card in Greensburg.

At Hunter's Drug in 2005, with Mr. Huckreide, who had been fixing soda's for over 50 years. Seriously.

I found my BFF there, and she and I, along with Dearest Sister raised some cane in church, enjoyed nickel cokes at Hunter's Drug, watched parades on Main Street, saw some afternoon matinees at the Twilight Theatre (but only at Christmas when there were special showings and likely friends of the elder sibs who wanted to take us. Lands, do you think we had money to waste?)

On May 4, 2007, a EF-5 tornado all but destroyed this town where I was born and raised.

Just the night before, my sibs and I had been discussing the possibilities of meeting in Greensburg to inter my mother's ashes around Memorial Day. She passed away 2 years before, and her memorial service took place where she lived after leaving Greensburg in the mid-60's. We siblings are spread out over the western half of the U.S. of A., and hadn't managed a time to get back to our hometown to bury Momma's ashes with Daddy. Now it looked promising with certain travel plans and arrangements that we could all be there over Memorial Day.

The Big Well Park in 2005

Friday night, while watching TV, I got a phone call from my brother saying it looked like Greensburg was getting hit by a tornado. Being raised in southwestern Kansas, my experiences with tornadoes were of those skinny little funnels that dip and touch and raise and hit and miss. As the events were unfolding real-time, it was very difficult that night to get any definite news, but as the story developed, it appeared this tornado didn't miss much. Almost two miles wide, it covered pretty much the entire town, Greensburg not being that big.

When I woke Saturday morning, I grabbed a cup of coffee, and turned on the national news while I exercised. I was stunned. As the weekend developed, Dearest Sister and I spent time on the phone, each on our own computer, looking at the aerial photographs, trying to identify landmarks. It seemed in each photo the house where we grew up was just outside the shot. (We found out later the back part of the house was damaged, with the roof, and later had to be demolished.)

The hospital I was born in, where my broken arm was set, and my chin was stitched up...gone. (Incidentally, BFF was working there that night.) The church turned antique store where we were baptized...gone. The water tower that marked the town, symbolically pointing the way to the Big Well, and occasionally overflowed (to our delight!)...on the ground. The schools we attended...gone.

The swimming pool...still there!


We were able to take care of Momma over Memorial Day weekend,burying her ashes 48 years to the day after my father died. It was going to be just Mom's kids, a couple of nieces and nephew, and some grandkids at the cemetary, but word had gotten out. Others started showing up, and kept coming. When it was time for us to say our good-byes, there were twenty or so other people there, some who had lost a good deal, who had a lot of unanswered questions about what they were going to do. Nevertheless, they came to say good-bye to this woman who had been a part of their community years before.

It is almost two years later, and Greensburg has embarked upon rebuilding. Leonardo DiCaprio even produced a TV show about their efforts to rebuild as green as possible. Some left after the tornado, but many stayed. And that is right, and good. But the town I grew up in is only in my memories.

We have another family get-together planned in Greensburg this Memorial Day when Wisest Sister and Only Brother celebrate their High School Reunions there. Dearest Sister and I will be hangers-on, providing comic relief, no doubt, and spending some time with Dear Aunt. It will be interesting to see the progress, and fun to see folks.

But I will miss the old town.