I think my mojo may be returning

I have been in a craft funk for a couple weeks. I couldn't match patterns to yarn, I'd start projects and decide they were ugly, and I decided I hated most of the yarn in my stash. It was not a good headspace to be in this week.

Sometimes when this happens, it's all in my head. There's nothing objectively wrong with my projects, I just hate them because of Reasons. But I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case this time. Case in point: my attempt to use some of my souvenir yarn from Alaska.

I have 400-ish yards of single-ply fingering weight wool/silk blend from Bad Sheep Yarn in North Pole, AK. It's Peregrine, which looks somewhat like the skein in this listing for the same colorway on another yarn base:

I brought it in to the store, found a yarn that coordinated with it, and decided I wanted to make The Love of Spiders shawl by Melanie Berg:

So I wound my yarn and got started. It's a basic triangle shawl shape and the slipped stitches make things a tad fiddly, so I was willing to write off my discontent with the way it was working out for at least a few inches. 

I got it to the end of a pattern repeat, then showed it to knitting friends. "It's not BAD," was the nicest thing anyone had to say about it. "It just looks like the slipped stitches are all messed up," my boss told me."

Ouch. (They weren't messed up; the yarn just wasn't playing nicely with the pattern.). I would insert a photo here, but apparently it was so ugly that I only showed it off in person.

So I pulled it out and found a different pattern, one with no slipped stitches and fewer fiddly bits in general. Bigger chunks of color, in recognizable lines, which should have helped minimize the "It looks like you messed it up" aspect of things. I got started, let it go for a couple inches, and while it looked better, I still looked at it and thought, "Meh...." Like, it made the yarn ugly, when it really isn't.

Everyone told me how much better it looked, which still didn't mean I liked it. Last night in a fit of pique I ripped the whole thing out and started a third project. "If it keeps refusing to be a shawl, fine. Screw shawls. I'm just going to make a striped cowl and be done with it."

See that? That right there is what the yarn wanted to be. Good thing, too, because my next option was going to involve a flamethrower and a lot of hysterical cackling.

I was so emboldened by the return of my mojo, today I scrapped another project I was hating on, and I used the yarn to cast on for another shawl entirely. And now that I am 2 hours into the project, I'm pretty confident this one's going to work out, too.

Now I just have to finish an ugly mohair cowl (there's no way it will ever be ugly enough for me to willingly rip back mohair) and decide whether my current sock project is too awful to live, and the funk will be entirely past. Just in time, too, since I'm going to have a LOT of knitting time pretty soon ...

Apparently I'm a sore loser, an alarmist, and a bad parent. So glad that was explained to me.

I'm still trying to process my feelings on the election results. Well, maybe "process" isn't the right word. I already know how I feel, but dealing with a mixture of profound disappointment and murderous rage isn't comfortable. "Tamp down to a manageable level" is a more accurate description, I guess.

What made me so angry yesterday was the proliferation of statements that derided those of us who were upset as being "part of what's wrong with the country." I didn't hear this from people who reluctantly supported the candidate because they were party voters, or from people who voted for the winner because they were voting against another candidate. I heard this from the Fuck Yeah 'Merica! supporters, the ones who seem to support the man no matter what he does or says. One of these folks - a picture himself of white male privilege - actually had the nerve to lecture those of us who were trying to figure out how to explain this to our children, saying we needed better parenting skills. 

The reality of things is, unless the stock market crashes, the election results will not have much of an impact on my life, at least in the short term. I am privileged. I am white, cis-gendered, heterosexual, raised as a Christian, married, old enough that unwanted pregnancy is unlikely, overweight enough that people don't hit on me or grope me or make comments about me when I walk down the street. I have a stable family with good health insurance and enough money to be comfortable. I do not fear for myself.

I fear for my daughter, who will have to deal for most of her reproductive years with the decisions made by the Supreme Court appointees the new President selects.

I fear for our non-hetero friends, whose marriages may be under threat and whose way of life will certainly be de-legitimized by the new Congress.

I fear for my daughter's non-Christian classmates, whose very presence in the country may now be seen as a threat.

I fear for my acquaintances with mental health issues or chronic illnesses who rely on the Affordable Care Act - as expensive as it can be - to qualify for any health insurance to help manage their conditions.

I fear for people who don't look like me, whose very face proclaims them as "other," regardless of where they were actually born or raised. People the newly-elected President seems to have no respect for, and no interest in understanding their lives or views.

I fear for my friends who have relied on food stamps, WIC, and subsidized housing to get them through rough patches that were not entirely their fault. 

I fear for my friends' older children, who will be going to high school and college in a world where assertive women are seen as "nasty" and judged on their looks rather than their accomplishments. Where comments about sexual assault are waved off as inconsequential, and women who are brave enough to come forward to face their abusers are vilified, mocked, threatened, and - worst of all - not believed.

And I fear for all of us in a world where gaslighting apparently has no negative consequences, and people care more about their own righteous beliefs than they do about the truth. Where a candidate can make hundreds of statements that are blatantly, proveably untrue, and still get elected. Where the media doesn't have the balls to call out a candidate for his lies, and the American public doesn't even care.

So if you've been thinking of those of us who are upset by the election results as alarmists who are overreacting to not getting our way, I suggest you check your privilege at the door and try to empathize with people who aren't in your position. No, this election won't influence my life much, but it sure as hell is going to influence those of my friends, neighbors, and fellow humans. And you belittling my concern for those people is just reinforcing my bad impression of the supporters and apologists of the winning candidate.

His name is Pat and I love him

Whoops

So, I forgot to post last night. Probably for the best, as it was likely to be an incoherent rant on the state of the election, and there are enough of those online already.

I really do love fall

Last night we stayed at the lodge at Maumee Bay State Park. Got up early (thank you, time change!) to go for a walk on some of the trails. 

Well, I say "trails," but really it was a boardwalk. The leaves smelled every bit as good when we crunched through them as I had hoped.

Swamp grass is so pretty in the sunlight...

When Jason buys me a surprise ...

... he gets the good seats. Thanks for taking me to see The Book of Mormon in Detroit!

A walk in the park

 

I...

... am going to need a Phantom mask soon.

Spot the Wonder Mole

Today I looked in the mirror and found a new mole on my face.  It wasn't there yesterday, but today - bam!  Mole!

I tried to wash it off.  I poked it to make sure it wasn't an unusual pimple.  I scratched at it.  I asked my family to confirm that I wasn't imagining things, it really wasn't there yesterday (it wasn't).

I searched for "mole appeared on face overnight."  I looked at photos of fatal skin cancers.  I looked up the phone number for my mother's dermatologist.

And then I said fuck it and went to bed.

The End (I hope)

I am all about the bribery and/or threats

Today's bargain:

• If I finish this blog post before my daughter finishes her homework, tomorrow I get to send her vegetables instead of a few pieces of Halloween candy in her lunch.
• If she finishes her homework first, she gets ice cream for dessert (and Halloween candy in her lunch tomorrow).

I would feel bad about making this sort of deal - after all, isn't motivation and perseverance part of what homework is supposed to be teaching her?  But let's be honest.  My kid's homework isn't exactly thrilling, and she's easily distracted by pretty much everything.  Too much noise, too little noise, people nearby, no people nearby, needing a sharp pencil, admiring how sharp her pencil is now, having to go to the bathroom, having to hide in the bathroom to use the iPad she's not supposed to have until after homework is done, needing a snack, needing a different snack, needing even more snacks because meals are something other people eat ... all of those things derail her from the "let's finish your science notes in less than two hours" train.

It's handy to have something I can say in place of the usual, "Are you actually working on your homework?"  I already hate the sound of my voice asking that question, and it's only November.  One of us is going to explode if I have to keep that up until June.  But not keeping on her back just leads to procrastination, bedtime meltdowns when she panics about what she didn't accomplish, and bad grades that give her headaches and stomach aches and a bad case of "I don't want to go to school."

For some reason, it's less annoying to both of us for me to say, "Wow, you really don't want ice cream tonight, do you?" every time I see her staring at a wall.  She bolts back to the table and gets back to work when ice cream is involved, let me tell you.  "Which kind of veggies should I send tomorrow?" is a little more passive-aggressive, but I'm willing to go there if it gets the assignment done.  And as a side benefit, trying to keep her motivated means I actually have to write a post, which I probably would have blown off otherwise.

Homework isn't the only area where I'm using a carrot-and-stick approach.  Another fun motivator I instituted this year: If I have to drive her the 30 minutes to school (because she dawdled and left home too late for the 5 minute drive to the bus stop) I will spend the entire drive to school lecturing her about all the human sexuality stuff her school doesn't cover in health class.  If we leave the house in time to make the bus, I keep my mouth shut and we listen to the radio.

I made it through female anatomy, male anatomy, consent, and non-heterosexual relationships before she realized I was serious and I wasn't going to run out of material any time soon.  I even had a video all loaded up on my phone to supplement one of the discussions - it was epic.

I have also offered to send pictures of her (very obviously uncleaned) bathroom to the mother of the boy she liked, and threatened to send photos of her carelessly discarded clothing to her grandmother so she knows not to buy Liza any more nice outfits.  I'm kind of a bitch sometimes.
 
But hey, if it works, I can play the Evil Mom card occasionally.  I certainly wasn't getting anywhere with my other approaches.  Maybe eventually I'll figure out some way to motivate my child that doesn't involve threats of embarrassment and/or withholding treats.  In the meantime, I'm hoping she gets lazy in the mornings again.  I don't want to have all those pictures of STD symptoms saved on my browser for nothing.

Well, I said I wanted more time to write ...

Yesterday my back decided to say "Fuck it, I'm done," for no discernible reason.  Seriously - it's disappointing.  This much pain should be from a car accident or an unfortunate attempt to lift a train off of a trapped child or something.  To have it just start for no reason is a let-down.  Sort of like when I had to go to therapy for weeks because I dislocated my kneecap ... by sitting down on the couch.  I got the oddest looks from all of the football-injured and car wreck victims at the PT gym.

Actually, it's just the right side of my lower back that's in spasm, which is involved in a disturbing number of everyday activities.  Like, you know, breathing.  Walking.  Sitting down.  Standing up.  Laying down.  Moving my right leg in any way. Moving my left leg in certain ways.  Coughing ... don't get me started on coughing.  Coughing is dead to me, as is anything that involves me bending forward from the waist.

Doctor Google says rest, ice, heat, and anti-inflammatories are about the only way to fix this, so that's what I'm doing.  Thanks to my boss (who put up with me only recommending yarn to customers if it happened to be at waist level or higher), my family (who turn out to be expert hot-pack microwavers and retrievers of things on the floor), ice packs, heat packs, ibuprofen, Tylenol, and Tylenol PM, I am now able to engage in some everyday activities without crying.   As long as it's above mid-thigh-level, I am all over it.  I even took a shower.  Trying to put on pants afterward was an adventure in swearing, and I gave up and had the kid put on my socks for me, but at least I'm clean.  And yes, I will go to the doctor if it gets worse or doesn't get better.  I'm not a martyr.  I'm just not keen on getting drugs that won't allow me to drive (and might lead me to say things I'll regret when I'm not taking them).

In the meantime, I'm out of commission for a few days, or at least only in commission if it can be done while standing up straight, sitting in a chair with arms, or lying down.  Look for lots of knitting and photo albums to get completed this weekend, I guess!

"Rain on car roof"

I have a white noise app that I use all the time. I love that I can listen to a cat purring while I write (without having to vacuum up cat hair) or turn up the crowd and traffic noise to drown out the people around me at Panera.  And yes, I use it to help me sleep when my usual trick of "staring resentfully at the ceiling" doesn't cut the mustard.

My favorite track to listen to at night is one that mimics the sound of rain on a car roof, which is oddly distinct and unusually comforting, at least to me. There's something very insular and comfortable about it, like it's raining out there but I'm nice and cozy in my little metal bubble of awesome.

This is a long-winded way of explaining why I'm sitting in my car in a parking lot watching the rain pour down while I grin like a maniac. I need to go inside and warm up for the gym .... but not yet.

Whole30, day 17

Look! It's a taco salad onto which I threw everything that was even vaguely Hispanic in my fridge! Yes, there's lettuce under there somewhere.

Also pictured: pineapple juice mixed with sparkling water. It was useful for cutting through the relatively insanely spicy meat and peppers on the salad. Good thing, too, since that role is usually played by cheese and sour cream. Oh, cheese, how I miss you.

Whole30, day 15

Today I took Liza with me to the grocery store, mainly because she was home from school and I needed to go, and partly because I wanted her to see what it is like to truly be surrounded by temptation and not give in.

She held the list and checked things off, and she was the designated label-reader for anything she wanted to get. That girl can spot sugar derivatives at 30 paces, let me tell you. And even though she whined and cajoled a bit, her heart really wasn't in it. I pointed out that she has been sleeping better, hasn't had a stomach ache, hasn't felt sick, and hasn't even had a sniffle since we started, as opposed to how she was when she was eating whatever she wanted. She admitted that she felt better...but she still wants a pizza. I don't blame her one bit!

Breakfast and lunch were variations on previous days: hard boiled eggs, sausage, and fruit; leftover soup and some guacamole dipped with those weird veggie potato chip things.

Dinner was a somewhat labor-intensive salad a la nicoise, with steamed green beans, boiled potatoes, hard boiled eggs,  roasted peppers and stuffed olives, and canned tuna. Homemade vinaigrette dressing turned out really good, even if the use of yellow mustard rather than Dijon did render it sort of bile-colored. I will totally use that recipe again, though, because it is quite tasty.

I also made some scrambled-egg-and-prosciutto thingees for breakfast tomorrow, and I have a pot of Cincinnati style chili simmering on the stove for dinner tomorrow. I have a long day of work to face, and a meeting tomorrow night, so I figure something I can just hear and throw over some Zoodles will be just about my speed. Thank goodness for planning at least a little ways ahead!

Whole30, day 14

Let's see, what is there to report? 

> I'm down nine pounds, and I fit into my skinnier jeans well enough to wear them all day yesterday. 

> Liza still complains about not having sugar, but she's stopped whining about it after school and instead of standing in front of the pantry pining for food she can't have, she asks which kind of fruit she's allowed to have. Score!

> On Friday I didn't bring a lunch, and I got stuck waiting until almost 2 to eat. I didn't die. I wasn't even ridiculously hungry, and I didn't get a headache or anything. And I got a salad from Chipotle (which was out of the officially compliant carnitas, so I said screw it and got half chicken and half steak). I had a small pang when I stood there looking at the cheese and sour cream, and another when I had to walk past the soda machine to get to the unsweetened iced tea, but it's not like it was a consuming craving or anything. I missed it, I shrugged, and I moved on. Winner!

> Saturday we went out to Jimmy John's for lunch (unwich with no cheese or mayo; it's better with guacamole). It wasn't that inspiring, and we had to stare at the big pile of bread while we are. But it was way better than Moe's last weekend, so it was declared a success.

> We got together with friends last night at the last minute and brought our own snacks, which we shared with them. Freeze-dried fruit is insanely popular, by the way.

> I did not spend all day yesterday or today obsessing about menues and going to grocery stores. Instead, I enjoyed myself, used leftover stuff to make Mexican chicken soup for dinner, and I'm going to figure out a few meals we can make without having to kill ourselves shopping and cooking for hours. Hopefully I'll find a good balance of effort vs. payoff that will give us a sustainable way to do a scaled-back version of this going forward. Keep your fingers crossed!

Whole30, day 11

Meal 1: I had leftover tomato soup with chicken added, Jason had leftover gumbo and some fruit, Liza had an apple with no-sugar-added peanut butter. Yes, I know peanut butter isn't compliant. No, I don't care - having Liza be 100% compliant was never going to happen anyway.

Meal 2: Jason had leftover tomato soup with shrimp, and some fruit; Liza had ham and tropical fruit; and I had roast beef, a hard boiled egg, the leftover carrot salad, and some blueberries. Turns out, I will eat hard boiled eggs if there's salt on them and I have some mustard to dip them in. Who knew?

Meal 3: Zoodles (zucchini cut with the spiralizer and lightly cooked) with arabbiata sauce (which is mostly bacon and tomatoes) and some sausage. Liza had sausage, strawberries, a carrot, and various other fruits.

Why yes, my kid is eating a lot of fruit. I do not see a problem with this. We throw vegetables at her when she watches tv  and isn't paying attention to what she's eating. Sneaky, right?

Whole30, day 10

Meal 1: Hamburger and half a grapefruit, both of which I prepped the night before.

Meal 2: Large salad with leftover shrimp from the night before, plus fruit.

Meal 3: balsamic vinegar chicken, plus a carrot/celery/cilantro salad with sesame dressing.

Liza had a carrot, some fruit, and a plain chicken breast. Verdict: I had forgotten how good this recipe is! We hardly ever buy boneless skinless chicken breasts anymore, so I haven't made this in years. The Trader Joe's chicken breasts were giant, to the point where I had a hard time eating a whole one plus all the veggies. Liza had no issues, though, tearing through hers in record time.

Observations: I have 3 triumphs to report:

1. My stomach felt better today, and I wasn't hungry until mealtimes (for the most part).

2. I successfully went to a bagel store (where I used to buy a bagel and diet coke for lunch almost every day) and bought an unsweetened iced tea, and I left the store without leaving a trail of drool and regret behind me. Go, me!

3. A sales rep came to the shop today and brought us cookies and brownies from the bakery next door. He left them sitting on the main table, where the brown bags could stare at me all day. I was good - I thought about them, maybe even fantasized about that brownie a little bit - but I did not eat them. Even when Erika had one. Even when Kathy brought in her own cookie and ate it in front of me. It was a long day, and I tried to stay away from the table as much as possible, but I made it through. I am insanely proud of myself.

Whole30, Day 9

A day late and a dollar short, so here's the quick rundown:

Meal 1: Leftover jambalaya (yay! Even better the next day!)

Meal 2: Small salad that left me hungry all afternoon and I didn't have any snacks with me and still I survived so I'm awesome.

Meal 3: Grilled shrimp, and tomato soup, both of which were totally nommy.

Observations: I was starving all day, especially once I realized I had left my snack at home and wouldn't have anything until like 4:30. Then I started having cramps, and I felt mildly awful all day. Then just before dinner things cleared up, moved along, and I felt fine. I suspect I wasn't hungry all day, I was feeling the day 8/9 stomach woes the web site warns about. Thank god for that, because if that was going to happen every day, I'd be done.

Whole30 day 8

I've invented a new award: the Golden Donut, which is awarded to a Whole30 participant who confronts a long-entrenched routine and fights against it for the good of her compliance. Today, I won it because I didn't have time to eat breakfast before I took Liza to school, and I didn't really want anything at home anyway, which usually would mean I would stop at McDonald's or Subway (or Burger King, which is located right next to my gym) for breakfast and a giant Diet Coke. And today I seriously thought about doing it, only ordering stuff that was as close to compliant as I could get. But nothing sounded any better than the crappy food I had at home, so I manned up and went home for breakfast. Yay, me!

Liza, on the other hand, caved in the face of the second classmate's birthday in two school days, and she ate the cupcake. And her stomach hurt afterward. And I asked if it was worth the stomach ache, and she said it totally was. Bitch.

Meal 1: Jason and Liza revisited the "baked sweet potatoes and ham," but I couldn't stomach the thought of it, for some reason. So I came up with little sandwich roll-up things with roast beef, roasted red pepper, dill pickle, and mustard. Between that and about 1/4 cup of an all-fruit smoothie, breakfast was done.

Meal 2: Jason and I had leftover jambalaya of awesomeness, plus some fruit. Liza had sliced deli roast beef, applesauce, and some veggies.

Meal 3: Ronaldo's beef carnitas with guacamole, fried onions and peppers, and pineapple. We subbed carrots for the veggies on Liza's plate, but otherwise she ate the same as us.

Whole30 day 7

Meal 1: Jason and I collaborated on scrambled eggs for breakfast, throwing in just about anything that wasn't nailed down this included onion, green pepper, mushrooms, ham, and kalamata olives. Verdict: olives do not belong in egg dishes. 

Liza had fried ham and half a banana, plus more fruit for snacks during the day.

Meal 2: After a trip to Heinen's, where I STILL couldn't find everything I needed for the week, I stopped by Moe's to pick up a quick lunch for all of us. Liza got the steak, plus some fruit from home. Jason and I got salads topped with half chicken half pork, fried onions and mushrooms, pico, tomatoes, olives, cucumbers, and cilantro. Got a cup of guacamole and threw half of that on top of each salad,

Verdict: I was not impressed. Apparently I need the cheese and sour cream to make this sort of thing palatable, because this was bitter and kind of gross. Given that Moe's is one of my favorite places to eat, this was definitely a disappointment. 

Meal 3: baked sweet potatoes, roasted cauliflower, and Paleo crab cakes. The kids had ham slices, carrots, sweet potato, and applesauce. We had friends over, so this counts as our first attempt to entertain on the plan.

Verdict: This turned out okay, and it was nice to have "normal" food to serve to our guests. The crab cakes weren't perfect (canned crab and coconut flour - oh, the horror!) but they were okay, and everyone had seconds. The sweet potatoes could have cooked a little longer, I think - they weren't as squishy as I would have liked. But at least we ended up with plenty of leftover cauliflower for this week!