It Is What It Is

Yes, this is a little post-vacation rant.

People get all pissy when I'm negative about things, telling me I "should" be more positive. Well, why? Why should I put a rose-colored-glasses spin on something that just sucked? Whatever happened to honesty, to telling it like it is?

We just got home from NC about 45 minutes ago (and for reference it's 4:10 a.m. Sunday morning, October 3). The reason we got home at 3:15 in the morning is because two of the three people involved in this trip unilaterally decided it would be better for them if we drove straight through, without bothering to consult Person 3 (that would be me) as to how I felt, or how this would effect Tyler.

Consequently, Tyler didn't get his dinner - a meal he could ill afford to miss since he's lost so much weight during his illness - and didn't get his last dose of eye medicine for the night. I was planning on feeding and medicating him when we got to the hotel room; by the time I realized we weren't stopping (since no one bothered to enlighten me as to this decision), it was midnight, I was too exhausted to try to put ointment in Tyler's eyes in the dark, there was no way he was going to eat in a moving vehicle - he's been very finicky about food lately, and has to be coaxed into eating - so the whole damned thing was a wash.

Also consequently, I got home wired and unable to go straight to bed, so I'm still up at 4:00 a.m. Which means that whenever I do finally crash, I'll still wake up by 8:00 or 8:30 a.m. - because I always do, no matter how late I go to bed - and I'll be a wreck all day tomorrow from lack of sleep. And I had things to do - like making sure laundry was done for work next week, and going to the grocery store. Conversely, certain others of my travel companions will be able to sleep until 11 or noon - as they frequently do after a late night - and wake up feeling fine tomorrow, with nothing to do all day except relax.

To add insult to injury, I was crammed sardine-esque into the backseat of the truck with Tyler, in what I came to refer to as the sarcophagus. I couldn't move, I couldn't lay down, I couldn't stretch out, I couldn't even put my feet on the floor. This was in part because I had an extra bag in the backseat on the way home that I hadn't had there on the way down, because I had very much wanted a shower Saturday before we left, but I didn't get to take it (which is another story), so I wanted to make sure I had shower stuff with me when we stopped at the hotel.

Which, of course, we didn't do. Had I known that, I'd have packed that crap up in my suitcase instead, and at least had a little more leg room.

Why couldn't I take a shower Saturday morning? Funny you should ask. Because on Friday night certain other people decided to stay up drinking until 3:30 or so in the morning, and one of them got sick all over one of the bathrooms; whereupon, when his girlfriend (not me) discovered this mess, she spent the morning doing laundry and cleaning up not only that mess, but our beach house - which I greatly appreciated, but it involved running the dishwasher - so between the dishwasher and the washing machine, I couldn't take a shower. And by the time they were both done, there wasn't enough time left to do it.

Which is why I desperately wanted to take a shower when we stopped for the night.

Hence my pissiness about the enforced overnight drive, which will have no negative effect on the people who unilaterally made the decision, but will pretty well wreck my Sunday before having to return to work Monday morning. Thanks, guys, for thinking of me and Tyler, instead of only yourselves.

More annoying was that Saturday dawned bright and fair - it was the first time I'd seen the sun in a week, skies were blue, ocean was calm and blue - and we had to leave. By 10:00 a.m. It rained All. Week. With the bonus of the not-tropical-storm that locals were comparing to Hurricane Floyd in 1999, if not in intensity, at least in rainfall (which it surpassed), endurance (an entire day and half the nights before and after), and frenzy (pounding winds and walls of rain for hours on end).

I'm not a Pollyanna, so I'd be lying if I said this was a good trip. It pretty well sucked, to tell you the truth. It sucked bad enough that I'm doubtful I'm going to bother trying it again next year, as far - FAR - too many things would have to change, which are unlikely to change without major upheaval. Because some people get ahold of things that work for them and really rebel about having their working status quo changed on them - despite that it doesn't work for someone else, who footed their fair share of the bill for this fiasco.

My truck now has over 90,000 miles on it, and I am no longer comfortable taking it on these long yearly trips, as I desperately need it to last as long as possible, since I don't know how difficult it's going to be for me to afford to replace it.

In addition, it's WAY too small for three people and a dog, and after the horrific experience of being entombed in the backseat for seventeen hours today, without even being able to lie down comfortably, there is no way in hell I'd ever try that again in this truck.

Thirdly, this trip is getting too difficult to afford anyway - and if we needed to rent a bigger truck (and a bigger beach house, but that's a story for another time), that just adds more to the expense, which I can't afford.

Fourth, if my opinion and the needs of me and my dog aren't going to matter anyway, then why am I going to bother being toted along and inconvenienced at someone else's whim, just so I can contribute my 1/2 of the money (and the transportation)? Screw that.

So ... that's where I'm at, at almost 4:30 a.m. after two weeks of pure hell (because, remember, Tyler's disaster and surgery was just the week prior to our leaving).

September was not a kind month to me.

Okay, I Guess I'm Back

It's been a strange week. Initially I was in denial I was back from vacation, but the definitive lack of water out my front door finally convinced me.

Then things just got busy. But now I'm finally posting some more vacation pictures.

Tyler

This looks goofier than it did in real life ... Tyler was actually playing, jumping around and racing back and forth on the deck. It was a beautiful thing, even if this picture is just silly. I mean, the Poo will be 15 years old next month ... I had to capture this moment. (smile)


Tyler loved the deck, especially the dune walk-over ... because this deck was completely enclosed and dog-safe, so he didn't have to be tied up. He could run free (as much as a dog can on a deck). It's the most freedom he's had since we moved to the new house (with no fenced-in yard). He sometimes just went and ran up and down this part of the deck.

Pelicans (but no Laurels) (ha ha)

Miscellaneous Fun Stuff

Greg body-boarding.


Me and Greg's brother, Bo.


Shrimp boat. Bubba Gump? Could be.

Found at the North Carolina Maritime Museum.

Our ledge.

When we got to the beach, there was this 4 foot drop-off down by the water. We'd never seen anything like it before, and after asking around, it's not very common, though it happens from time to time. Apparently there'd been a bad storm the day before we got there, and it had eroded this huge section of the beach. It generally fixes itself. During the week it grew shorter and taller as the tides came and went. But by the time we left it had been reduced to only a foot or two, and looked to be correcting itself slowly but surely.

A storm at sea ... I loved how you could see the rain.

Sad.


A fisherman just up the beach from us had caught this little shark. He decided to use it for bait, so tossed it aside and let it die. Then he changed his mind and never cut it up. I was sad that he killed it, especially when he didn't even use it for anything (not that I think cutting it up for bait would have justified killing it, but at least he'd have used it for something ... I guess).

How I spent my birthday.

Well, This Sucks

I've come from a week of sunny-and-80-degrees to waking up in Wytheville, Virginia to about 40 degrees. Ugh.

We split the trip home pretty evenly, we have about 7 hours to drive when we leave here this morning. It was a great trip, as always. And as always, it sucks coming home.

Meanwhile, I've got some of my pictures ready, so I thought I'd post them now. I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I usually do, and I know Greg has more (and better ones), so after I get a chance to borrow his card I will probably have more to post tonight or tomorrow.

Our beach house living room ...

... and the kitchen ...



The walkway from our main deck to the beach.



I didn't take many pictures of the house, but it was really nice. It was smaller than the ones we've gotten in past years, but it worked out great. The other places were actually kind of too huge. This place still had 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, a large living room and kitchen area, and an absolutely perfect deck - better than the other places, as it was bigger, and it was dog-safe - I could let Tyler run loose out there without any danger. This house was really perfect for us, and I totally wouldn't mind staying here again.

Tyler on the beach.


Tyler napping.


A dolphin ...



And some ocean pictures ...

Pre-Vacation Miscellanea

Why I love Knitty ...

... 'cause you find things like this there.

Since I haven't been knitting for a long, long time, I hadn't been to Knitty for a long, long time. This morning I decided to pop over (mostly just to check my link and make sure it was still working), and browsed this issue's free patterns. And found the above, which has no purpose in life other than being completely adorable, looking relatively quick and easy to knit, and being a free pattern.

But lest you think Knitty's all fluff, let me tell you that in every issue they have a bunch of patterns - all free - and most for extremely useful and beautiful things like sweaters (yes, entire sweaters - and cool ones), hats, socks, and a variety of other wearables. Did I mention they are all free? It's just so unusual to get such high-quality, unique patterns for free, consistently.

But I just might have to make some ZoZos.

This has made me think about knitting ... which I would like to do again. I know what happened. I got too lost on the project(s) I was working on, and there's just about nothing harder than trying to pick up a several-year-old project, re-orient yourself, and get it back on track. But I have some mental issue about starting a new project when I have old ones languishing.

There was the self-designed sweater I was knitting. For one thing, it wasn't going well, which was part of my frustration in not keeping up with it when it began to lag. For a second thing, I had grown to detest the color I'd chosen (and bought $100 worth of for this project), which doesn't encourage stick-to-it-iveness, either. Sigh.

Then I'm pretty sure I was working on a pair of socks, the whereabouts of which I do not even know. Sigh again.

I was working on a sweater a few years ago (Celtic Icon) which was going horribly wrong, and I remember that it actually caused me to stop knitting for awhile ... because I couldn't bear to pick it up anymore, yet I couldn't enjoyably justify starting anything new when I had that one that I wasn't working on. I finally made the tough but necessary decision to scrap that project, and rip it all out. Then I was able to move on.

While I hate the thought, that may be where the self-designed sweater is headed.

So I'm getting ready to go on my annual beach trip to North Carolina. I've always taken knitting with me. I've almost never worked on the knitting while there. I'm debating whether to dredge up some project, take it with me, and renew my knitting skills while on vacation; or wait till I come home and save the packing space. Decisions, decisions.

I'm paring down seriously this year on what I take. I usually took at least one knitting project, and five or six books. I often never even unpacked any of it. It would turn out that we'd either be busy the whole time, or even when I was just sitting around on the deck, I was too busy looking at the ocean to watch my knitting or words on a page.

This year I'm taking exactly 2 books (one fiction, one non-fiction - my mood varies), and was going to take an embroidery project 'just in case' ... but I don't really have one ready to go. My embroidery of the Death tarot card has reached a point where I need to draw on some more of the design before I can continue, but it's a complicated bit of drawing for which I'd prefer to use the light box (tracing). But to do that, I need an enlarged copy of the card, which I've lost, and it's tricky to make a new one ... the room our copier is in at work is always crowded with people, so it's hard to find a chance to copy something when no one's around ... and I don't really want to explain why I'm standing at the office copier making an enlargement of a tarot card with the Grim Reaper on it.

(Although a simple "mwaahaahaaaa" might suffice to get people to leave me alone for the rest of the week ...)

Three more days ... we're now hoping to leave Friday night after all, and drive part-way and get a hotel room. We originally weren't going to, and were going to leave super-early Saturday morning - but even if we do that, we're liable to not get there till late Saturday evening, maybe not even before dark - and that just sucks.

But there's a lot to do to get ready by Friday night. And what really pisses me off is, I could have done it - except that I woke up Sunday morning with the worst back pain I think I've ever had. It's all concentrated around a spot on the right-hand side about mid-way up, and feels for all the world like a pulled muscle - which would be fine, I could know what to expect if that was it - except I'd done nothing in the preceding days to cause a pulled muscle, and have not been able to figure out what the hell's wrong with it. Also, pulled or strained muscles (on me anyway) usually begin clearing up in a day or two, but we're going on Day 4, and it's as bad as ever - and most of the time excruciating. I can barely move, which has put a real damper on the energy and motivation needed to get things all packed up in time to leave on Friday.

Ah, the week leading up to a vacation. Always a joy.

Yes, I'm A Freak - It's Blogapalooza

I was in the mood to post recently, but didn't really have anything to say. I was looking over my page, and noticed what a long list of categories I have. And it came to me ... I'll do the annual (?) Category Update, with a little blurb about each thing on the list.

Okay - I suppose the 'blather' category can come at the end (if the middle doesn't cover it).

In knitting news: I went back to work on the sweater this week. Hopefully I'll keep steadily at it, and maybe get it done by ... umm, spring? Sigh. Oh well. I wasn't too keen on the last pair of socks I started, so I may scrap them and start a new pair. I decided some time earlier this year that life's too short and uncertain to waste time on projects I've truly lost interest in. It's a hobby - for fun. Not something (else) I have to force myself to do.

I haven't thought about whether I'm doing any Christmas knitting this year, but if I am, I'd better get busy planning that.

SCA: This is the time of year that my post-Pennsic glow (if there was one) is waning, and I start forgetting about the whole thing till next year. Bad idea. This is the very time of year to keep motivated on long-term projects, and if I did, I'd be very happy with myself next year. So I'm going to plan to work on some of my projects at least once a month throughout the winter. Some of the things I want to do:

• make some more (better) garb


• decorate the garb I have - embroidery and such


• make my tent cover


• make a new top for my shade pavilion


• hmm, I'm sure there are some more things, but that's a good start

Gardening: Well, I started strong this year, but was disappointed in my follow-through. But the good news is, since I decided to start treating gardening as work-in-progress, as an experiment of sorts, I'm not too angsty about it. I learned a lot from this year. I lost steam about mid-summer, and didn't maintain my plants and things well. I especially lost it after Pennsic - I stopped watering things, and being August, it kind of did them in. Nothing really ever recovered. I also didn't plan my fall plantings as I'd have liked - I'd wanted to plant some of these gorgeous mums I'm now seeing at the stores, but I didn't plan a space for them, so I don't know where to put them. And I wanted to plant some bulbs for spring flowers, which I also haven't done (although I don't think it's too late for that). There are still some things I need / want to do before serious bad weather - mark where my perennials are, so I don't disturb them next spring when I want to start digging around in the flower beds; prune the roses; trim the shrubs out front; clean out the planters; and clean up the pond. Those things I hope to do soon, to at least get prepared for next season.

Weaving: I haven't done any weaving in way over a year. But it's something I'm still very interested in. I'd like to continue learning about tapestry weaving, but to do that now, I'd probably have to start over in my 'tutorial book' I bought last year. Well, it'll stay on the wish list for awhile yet.

Tyler: Tyler's doing great. He had a wonderful time on vacation, running around on the beach. He seemed to do well on the trip there and back, despite it's length. I just had him to the vet's on Saturday for a T4 check (testing his thyroid to see if his current medication needs adjusted), and they told me his levels were perfect, so his meds are fine. He's lost some weight though, and is getting kind of bony. I know part of that is aging (he'll be 14 next month!) but I'm going to work on bulking him up a little without letting him get too fat. I'm adding a third snack / meal to his day, consisting this week of a half-cup of whole wheat pasta and some mozzarella cheese. We'll see how that does for him. I'd also like to start taking him out more for exercise - as I mentioned, he did great on the trip, wanting to run around and seeming very energetic. Here he just lays about all the time, but I think he truly just gets bored because we don't do much - it's my fault we don't go for walks and outings anymore. As long as he still feels like it, keeping him active can only be good for him. Unfortunately, I waited till fall when the weather will be turning bad - but we tend to have relatively mild winters here, so hopefully if I ever get started, there will still be lots of exercise to be had in the coming months.

Embroidery: I have several embroidery projects I'd like to get back to. One is the embroidery on the pirate coat (a separate entry). Another is some embroidery on garb (mentioned in the SCA entry). I want to finish The Dread Reverend's Sea Chameleon favor, as the only person who has one right now is Berg, and I certainly thing the Commodore deserves one at least as much, if not more. Maybe over the winter months.

Quilting: This is one of those hobbies that I'd like to have time for, but never do. I mentioned in knitting that I'd learned the difficult lesson of giving up on projects that were no longer 'getting it' for me. I'm about to that point with the Tolkien quilt. It's at least 10 years old, and I've just really lost interest in it. I think if I could scrap it with a clean conscience, it would free me up to do some other useful things. I would like to make a scrap quilt; I got a book awhile back full of patterns for scrap quilts made with 5" squares (so it's easy - you cut all your material into 5" squares, then you can choose any pattern from the book and you're all set for it). I spent an entire weekend some time ago cutting all my large, accumulated fabric stash into 5" squares, and have added to it since - I could probably make several of these at this point. And this type of project (if I don't over-engineer it) could easily be completed in a couple of weekends. So perhaps that's something I'll think about getting done this winter as well.

Poi: I'm still practicing! I had a wonderful evening on the beach in North Carolina doing some solitary poi with glow-sticks on the poi balls. It was around sunset /dusk, and I was actually standing in the swash zone, with the income waves washing over my feet. It was magical. I plan to continue working on poi, although I haven't learned anything new in quite awhile.

Travel: Well, the NC trip was a success (despite some dark spots which I won't go into here). I cannot WAIT to go back. So my vacationing for this year went really, really well. The only thing I want to do differently next year is plan a spring vacation - whether it's NC or some place else - because as it stands now, my only two 'real' vacations fall at the beginning of August and the end of September - too close together, with that hideously long stretch of 10 months in between.

Shenanigans: We haven't had many of these for awhile. We had the one wild porch party this year, but that was about it. We have our annual Samhain party coming up, but I've been getting lazy and not really wanting to turn it into an overnighter / weekend event anymore. I'd rather have something more quiet. Wild raucous parties are fun - except for having to deal with the aftermath the next day. I wish someone else would host the party; then I wouldn't have to worry about that part of it.

Project: Pirate Coat: I've done nothing with it since before Pennsic, except wore it in the surf in North Carolina and got saltwater on the bottom. :o) Which was planned. I need to remove the temporarily-sewed-on cuffs and finish the embroidery on them; and then do the embroidery on the rest of the coat. I ought to think about starting that soon, because that's going to be a winter-long project.

Sewing: Yeah, I don't even know why this category is here. I don't make much of anything that wouldn't fall into the SCA or Quilting categories. Fact is, while I enjoy the idea of homemade things, I don't really much like sewing.

New House Project: While the original house that spawned this category is old water under the bridge, I haven't deleted the category because it's kind of a never-ending dream of mine. I'm back on it, at least temporarily. As I've said many times before, my house is simply too small for the people who reside here throughout the month. We desperately need a bigger house. The problem is (a) affording it, and (b) figuring out how to unload my house in this market. But I'm currently re-obsessed with a house I first noticed a year and a half ago, which is still on the market, recently changed realtors, and on which they've significantly dropped the price. I have an appointment to go see it tomorrow. I really love this house (what I know of it) and it would be perfect for us - 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a living room, family room AND rec room; 2 acres; an in-ground pool; just gorgeous. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

And that brings us to recipes, which I've only ever posted once. That's only because it was my mom's recipe, and so not copyrighted. But I muck about with recipes all the time. Maybe over the winter I'll see fit to post some new ones.

Well, I guess that's about it - and certainly covers the blather. That's my life in a nutshell right now: desperately trying to figure out a way to afford a bigger house, and fit my many hobby dreams and wishes into my life. Winding down into the cocoon of autumn, and thinking a lot. But that's a post for another time.

Well, I'm Back

We got home Sunday evening from our annual trip to Emerald Isle, North Carolina. That place is so beautiful, it's really difficult coming back here afterwards. I've barely been online since I came home, so it took me awhile to get here to post.

The weather was gorgeous, warm but not too hot. It only rained once, and that was from a small storm that blew through one evening, so by the next day it was clear again. The water was warm and the waves were beautiful.

I spent a wonderful amount of time just sitting on the beach doing nothing. We saw bunches of dolphins this year, even saw one leap up out of the water several times. We went to Shackleford Banks, and I got to see some of the wild horses, and we found some fantastic shells.

Well, since a picture's worth a thousand words, and I do tend to go on and on, I'll just get to the pictures.

The beach house we rented ... appropriately decorated right after we got there.

I love this place! It's right next door to the one we got last year, and identical, except for a few minor things that make it better. One is that the vertical slats in the upper and lower decks are closer together, so Tyler can't get through them. Last year at the other house, they were just wide enough apart that he could fit through, and I spent the whole week terrified he was just going to leap off the lower deck or accidentally fall off the upper deck (his eyesight is going, and he's been known to just walk off the edge of things before now). This year, with no worries about that, we spent a lot more time out on the decks.

Tyler enjoying the beach. He seemed to have a pretty good time this year, and enjoyed hanging out on the beach (especially since this year we had a beach umbrella, unlike last year).

A couple of the ponies on Shackleford Banks.

Tubing in the surf.

We had a fleet of pirate kites this year.


One night we did full pirate regalia, and went down to the beach.

Why is the rum gone? ... oh ... never mind.

And then of course, the main attraction:

Not only are we sure we're going back next year, but I'm desperately trying to think of a way to afford making this a semi-annual trip, going back in the spring. A year is too long to wait. (Six months is too long to wait, but I am pretty sure I can't afford it any more often than that). Since I got the new office at work, I've increased my hours slightly, and am considering increasing them a little more ... with the right tweaking, I think I can make this work.

Beaver River Regatta; and Poi Success!!

Yesterday we went down to Bridgewater Landing, where my brother docks his boat, for the Beaver River Regatta. We had a really good time. We got to take the boat out, and this time nothing went wrong. We had a nice ride up and down the river, dropped anchor for awhile and played a little music, then came back in the evening for the regatta parade.

Playing modern-day captain.


Navigator Ashley.

Going into Montgomery Lock.



Inside the lock.

The dam that made the lock necessary.


Music pirate.
Yeah - no explanation necessary.


The boat decorated for the regatta.


Bridgewater Landings decorated up for the regatta.

In poi news ... I LEARNED THE 3 BEAT WEAVE!!! Yeah, that's a big deal. You see, the 3 beat weave is supposed to be a beginner's move, yet it's very impressive looking in it's own right, seems to be a staple move in most poi-routine videos I've seen, and it's an important step in learning more advanced moves.

But for the first few days I was trying to learn it, I just could not get it. Not even a little bit. I was beginning to despair of ever progressing in my poi spinning if I couldn't learn this allegedly simple move. In some forums I was reading, people were saying they'd learned this move in a day or even a few hours. I was going on a week and couldn't get it.

Yesterday I wasn't even really planning to work on it, but I'd started doing a simple forward spin in split time (left and right poi spinning in opposing circles, one poi up when the other's down, sorta thing), and then started crossing them over. Simple as that is, I'd only ever done the crossovers in same time. As soon as I started doing that, I realized that was the "2 beat weave" that was the precursor to the 3 beat. So I stood and did that for awhile, while picturing the tutorial videos in my mind. Watching those tutorial videos over and over and over, even when you haven't been able to begin learning the move yet, seems to be a really good thing to do ... it's like training your mind to 'know' what to do so it can then tell your muscles what to do, before you've even physically done it yet. While standing there doing the 2 beat weave and picturing in my mind what my arms should be doing, I was just suddenly able to start doing it!

It took about 20 minutes of practice to begin to get it set in my mind to where I can purposely replicate it, and not just have it happen almost 'by accident.' It's still pretty sloppy, and I can only seem to maintain it for 10 seconds or so before I lose it - but I can do it, which means I'm sure I'll get better at it and progress from there.

So yeah - it was a very big deal to me.

I'd learned a couple other tricks this week too - despite feeling as if I'm not really making much progress, I guess in a way I am - I've managed to learn something new almost each day this week. Maybe in a few weeks I'll know enough moves well enough to put together a little routine, tape it, and post it somewhere. Yay me.