We carved pumpkins on Sunday night. Then roasted the seeds in a big frying pan with kosher salt and olive oil. I'd never roasted seeds on the stovetop before but that's what it said in How to Cook Everything and it was good.

Cody made his own design

and I did a freehand version of the Albuquerque Craft Mafia logo. This photo has Phunq kitty in the window in the background.

I couldn't find my old printcarving tools, which usually work much better for pumpkin carving, but I did find my old clayworking tools did the trick pretty well. We recognize the painful irony that Cody is better at pumpkin carving and graphic design while I have the Art degree and that I'm a better essayist and more prolific writer while he's the one with the English degree. Oh yes we know.

But we'll see whose jack o lantern is spookier when the candles are inside! I'm going to make the kids vote before I give them candy tonight. Bet they'll vote for the one made by the lady holding the candy. Bet they will!

Believe me the second part is way more of a surprise. The last eight months or so he's been listening to this stuff called nerdcore by a guy called MC Frontalot. It's rap or hiphop or something about being a nerd. I'm sooo not kidding. There's even a guy called MC Hawking who converts Stephen Hawkings' voice recordings to rap music. Or something. It's all very weird and believe me, there's nothing cuter (or funnier) than watching my tall pudgy white nerd husband rap along with these guys while he's out driving our little CRV.

Now the food. Wow. The other night he made Thai shrimp with couscous and fresh organic green beans. In about fifteen minutes. WE LOVE YOU TRADER JOE'S!

I've felt really swamped with stuff this week but if I look around at it all I feel like I haven't accomplished much. I've sold a few skeins of the gypsy scarf kit which makes me very happy. I was worried that I was charging too much but everyone kept telling me to keep it at that price and it would sell. I tend to underestimate my prices.

I did put my gypsy scarf pattern up for sale in the shop in pdf or snail mail format. It's only 3.25 and it has some great ideas in it. Including a fun yarn randomizing technique. Hee. I'm really proud of that pattern I think it would be a lot of fun for new knitters and experienced ones who want to try something new and weird.

I've also been playing around with our sewing machine (a 1960s Kenmore we got from an estate sale) making little bags to fill with a dried lavender rosemary blend I have. I like tossing in a little bonus gift in with my sold items. I've used up the stuff from the Japanese dollar store and this is a good way for me to practice some sewing. And lavender is a natural moth-repellant so it's a great little bonus. Not the most technically well-done but who cares right?

I've been worried that I haven't been very ambitious with my little shop. I've been selling on Etsy for a year now, since the Katrina fundraiser, and I've just stayed with Etsy because I think it's a good website with a built in market of people who understand and appreciate handmade items. Those programmers work hard and probably deserve way more than they're making, and I know how that feels. So I intend to stay with them until I have the time and energy to mess around with hosting a shop on my own domain. Since I do my own tech support that's more trouble than I think it's worth at the moment.

I did register a domain that will redirect to my etsy shop. It's weird because it was my old domain way back when I first had a website in 97: http://www.noellesnoodles.com It was much, much cheaper to register this time.

Since it's been a year I've been thinking about what direction I want to go in with the shop. If I want to just keep doing what I've been doing. To be honest this little enterprise isn't about making the most money with my time really, it's about art and self-worth.

Every yarn I spin, or paint, or put together is a piece of individual art to me. I can try to make something like it but the individual pieces can never be copied exactly. The fact that I can put it up for sale and people will buy it is like a friggin miracle. I'm not kidding.

After I finally finished my sculpture degree I never thought my work would be commercially successful. Remember I was in Santa Fe and had spent years competing with the "big power tool boys" in the sculpture department. My stuff wasn't big and sexy it was usually small and intimate or largely abstract but in a way that was hard to explain and usually a bit brooding with a lot of background story to it.

I was probably most well-known for my nudes and had just started a series of self-portraits that reflected a whole new echelon of self-image and my own body acceptance. While festively plump women aren't very well-received in the fashion industry, for the most part, plus sized nudes aren't all that sellable in the art world either. I'd given up on commercial success with my artwork by 1997 but I'd also had a really great year in my personal life.

It was a trade off and really made me wonder if it was possible to be artistic and romantically happy at the same time so I started to design websites. LOL sorry that was just a hilarious sentence to me. I designed websites professionally until about 2000 when I got totally burnt out with having to keep up with the latest technology all the damn time while only getting to use a tiny bit of creativity.

Anyway, having a little store now where I can be creative, create something I consider art, and actually sell it..unbelievable. But I also am hell-bent on keeping this fun. I don't handle stress well. So I don't really court many special orders or advertise much. I just create stuff I think is cool and put it up for sale. I try to keep the attitude that if people don't buy it that it's ok I had fun making it. I just want to keep enjoying the process. I would like to pay for the cruise with what I make but we're also saving up for it in other ways.

I don't mean to be a big downer or anything, it's just time for the annual stockholder's review so I'm taking stock, so to speak, of how I feel about it all. All in all I feel pretty good about it. Maybe a little defensive of my decisions and actively remaining small but I'm pretty used to making decisions that other people might not make.

Except voting Tucker Carlson's butt off of Dancing with the Stars. Must admit I felt some Schadenfreude watching that.

I had a blast at Crafty Friday. Yay!
Cody found my digital camera in one of my project bags. Yay!
He found it when it fell out onto the garage floor when he was bringing my project bag in from the car. Boo!
The camera's still ok. Yay!

I was ubergirly last night. Yay!
I dyed my own hair dark strawberry blondish. Yay!
I used that cool depilitory Veet squeegee stuff on my legs and underarms. Yay!
I missed a spot and found a "soul patch" smack in the front middle of my ankle. Boo!
I also got a chemical burn on the underside of my left upper arm. Boo!
I found some neosporin for the healing and found some monistat topical cream (the stuff that comes in a little tube for numbing your hooha before the internal medicine works) for numbing the pain. Yay?
We got some real medicine and bandages today. Yay!
I don't make much of a girly girl do I? Yay.

We finally made it to Trader Joe's today! Yay!
It was unbelievably crowded. Boo!
They have good pet food. Yay!
It was comparatively cheap with higher quality than Smiths. Yay!
We didn't buy a whole lot else. Boo!
We did get a pot of daisies...Yay!

To bring to my mother-in-law when we went for a visit this afternoon. Boo?
We got free haircuts from the mom-in-law! Yay!
The father-in-law and I did not argue about politics once. Yay!
He made a compliment (I think) about Cody looking like "the president" after his haircut. Boo
I joked "Ok Cody now you have to make a face that's simultaneously dumb and smug!" Yay!
My mother-in-law gave me free Tupperware! Yay!
Alas, we did not get a free meal. Boo!
But I did finish the second ugg baby bootie. Yay!

My Tivo DVR thingie is acting up. Boo!
But it taped the new episode of Huff. Yay!
I'm going to go watch it now so this post is ending soon. Boo!
And eat some hummus and Pitas from Trader Joe's. Yay!
But first I'm going to show you all these photos. Boo? Yay?

Here are the long-awaited Noro Stash photos.

All the Noro
with bonus puppy lying in the dirt!

Silk Garden

Kureyon

Iro

Cash Iroha

Transitions

With bonus Fiesta Yarns porn!

La Boheme and Gelato in "African Violet"

Kokopelli in Turqoise Trail and Watermark in Taos

La Boheme and Chamisa in Arizona

This is a neat handpainted yarn from a local artist in the East Mountains, Robin Pascal. I used her yarn to make the craaaaazy scarf.

And this is my current Project Spectrum project yarn. I'm in the second repeat on the front of my Sprout tunic with this Giotto yarn. I'm going to use this pretty gold Fiesta La Luz silk for something this month as well.

And this is the puppy wearing the glam punk rock neckwarmer

So today is the seventh anniversary of marrying Cody. I can't believe that part but what I really can't believe is this summer we'll have been together nine years. NINE. One two three four five six seven eight NINE YEARS.

Eight and three-quarter years ago on a summer day I met this blind date in the garden dining area of Harry's Roadhouse. This date was a big deal because he was the first blind date from out of town that was willing to drive up to Santa Fe. I hadn't seen him and the only photo of me that he'd seen was a pretentious black and white of me looking wan and goth taken by Will (who you can see smiling away at us in the above photo) during a trip to Rome. I was running late. Of course. I asked the girl at the counter if a tall guy with dark hair was waiting for someone. He was out back.

I was wearing oversized black overalls and a white t shirt sporting lots of wet reddish brownish hair on my head. I was thinner then. We both were. Not skinny by any means but definitely thinner than we are now. I'd brought my sketchbook with the nude self-portraits I'd started drawing recently. It didn't occur to me at the time what an oddly forward thing this was. It was my art. What I'd been studying in school. I'd been doing nudes for years it really didn't seem like that weird a thing anymore. The job I had at the time was allegedly being the assistant editor and head electronic editor for Woman Santa Fe Magazine (but had really turned out to be advertising salesperson and parttime worker for the magazine owners' juice company) was in a slow decline.

This guy was tall with a big poof of dark hair, somehat thin for very large big frame, and big kind blue eyes behind huge geeky glasses. He spoke softly but with a deep voice if that makes any sense. I kept having to lean in to hear what he was saying. He commented that he liked that I was really paying attention. He was sweet and was very polite about my sketchbook full of odd drawings and collages.

When we finished eating we went to the parking lot and compared who had a messier car. I think I won but just because my car was a four door and his was only two. He followed me to my place. (Yeah, I hear you, STUPID STUPID Girl! Taking a stranger to your place STUPID). In my defense, my friend Jocelyn had his number. She had my number. I had lots of neighbors. And he was a nice gentle guy. I knew that. I pride myself on my ability to bead in on personalities fairly quickly. And to be honest there have only been a few surprises.

He met my kitties. Love me, love my cats. Melon had a favorite toy at the time that was a neat wand fishing pole thing made of plastic tubing with thick plastic wire with a big feather on the end. We hung out on the sofa and played with my cats. I was totally happy. He was worried that he was being dull. We went downtown to the new (at the time) location of the Atomic Cafe, got some iced coffee and sat by the fountain. We walked by some art galleries and argued about abstract art. He was a strict photorealistic watercolor guy that admittedly knew little about art but knew what he liked. It was a strictly intellectual argument, not personal. And kind of fun to have a male intellectual equal. We went back to my apartment.

And talked and played on my computer all night. We kissed exactly once. Then we went to breakfast at Tecolote. He had to be back in Albuquerque later that morning so he left.

That night he came back up to Santa Fe. I cooked pasta. He brought his acoustic guitar. There was a moment while I was cooking and he was sitting at the table tuning his guitar and it was like home. That was it. He sang "Romeo and Juliet" to me. That was really it. We've been together ever since.

Seven years ago we had a very fancy wedding in Santa Fe. A big to do at the Loretto Chapel and La Fonda's la terrazza ballroom. We'd already bought our house the fall before. And after living together since the summer we met we knew what we were getting into. By living together you get a pretty good idea of the person you're marrying. But I also believe that living together and being married are distinctly separate experiences. Which is why I believe strongly that everyone should have the option to do either if they want to.

We didn't do much yesterday. Slept late, took a shower, and went out to dinner with his parents. Got coffee on the way home. And it was fun. We haven't really taken an official "romantic trip" together since our honeymoon in New Orleans. To us daily life is the romance. I married a guy I'm happy to just run errands and watch television with. To talk to every day. Because to be frank sex and romance are nice but the most time in a relationship with a guy is the dull tedious stuff. Might as well be someone you have fun doing the little things with. Trips to the grocery store are fun because we're together. We're happy to eat delivered pizza, sushi at Ichiban, or just pick up some Bubble tea and take Winter to the dog park. And even after seven years of daily married living we're still happy to wake up to see the other's face. And amazingly still haven't run out of things to talk about.

I'm pretty used to the random webcomment spam. And I'm even immune to the gravity-free sex apparatus spam. But I really HATE the stuff that's generated to look like a continuing office conversation saying stuff like "Lance, I've confirmed the plans with Biff I hope these are ok for you." What good is this serving?

I've been a bit lazy about the personal posts. I don't seem to get a lot of them done in March. The Women in History stuff wipes me out. And I haven't actually gotten a lot of knitting done. But I've been spinning! I've spun this crazy merino mohair stuff similar to the hell's angel hair but in varying shades of blue. It's big and thick and thin - totally taking advantage of having this ginormous bobbin while I can.

This morning I mailed the fulted marble beret to my cousin (finally) and the Bombay Dreams yarn to Pamela. We ran a few other errands (this being the only night Cody has off until next Monday boooo) I just had a nice bath and read one of the short stories he's been wanting me to read. It's funny how we have reading lists for each other - so we can talk about them later.

After I finish this post? I'm going to drink limeade and ply that crazy fuzzy blue yarn with beaded thread. CRAZY stuff. I might even name it Grover in Drag or There's a Monster Wearing Pearls in this Skein. There will be companion yarns for it too because I have a bunch more of that blue merino and fluffy soft mohair. Having a ball in spinland. Wish you were here.

I'm so lazy these days I've given up any pretense of posting a narrative blog entry. Just lists. And if I get any more morose and whiny on here I'm going to become an official emo blog. But if I'm destined to have a small animal-themed emo blog with occasional knitting posts, then a small animal-themed emo blog with occasional knitting posts I write.

Anyway, this is old-schooll link style bloggin, babies.

1. I'm incredibly proud of my friend, Scout. Where she gets the energy to raise two children, keep a spotless house, work at a yarn store, knit (and finish) projects on a consistent basis, and get quoted in a major US newspaper is beyond me. I envy her energy.

2. I have no idea what I've done to make a sweet guy like Cody love me so much. That he can be woken up with his wife in a pitiful state of simultaneous tears, nausea, and hunger because she's too sick and weak to figure out what to eat, make blueberry toast for her, introduce her to the eighth wonder of the world: apple slices with peanut butter, all without being cranky or upset, then go back to bed makes him a guy who should win a nobel prize for husbands.

3. I'm fairly sure that Zola has Wobbly Hedgehog Sydrome, a misleadingly cute name for a horrible disease. It's supposed to be similar to human MS. Basically her legs are getting stiff and can't hold her body up so she keeps falling over, especially when she tries to walk. Eventually she won't be able to move by herself. And while there are things that I can do to slow the degeneration there is no cure. I've been noticing slight changes since last fall but thought she was just being lazy and enjoying her new heating system a lot. At just under three years old she isn't that old for a hedgehog. And she's been much more vocal lately. For a while I thought she was just getting more talkative, now I think they're little honks of frustration because she can't get to where she wants to go.

This isn't definite yet. We're going to the vet this weekend. But it's looking pretty likely (warning! heartbreaking video of sick hedgehogs in this link!). Another genetics-related disease, despite going to a serious breeder. If there is a god I'm giving it a big middle finger right now. (Kind of explains the above crying hungry nauseous situation doesn't it?)

I've been holding her up to help her get some walking on the table and giving her little massages. The spookiest part (as it was when Melon was sick) is this is the least cranky and most compliant she's ever been. You know they're sick when they're not being feisty. And I don't think she can form a complete ball anymore.

And, yes, we will be putting her down when she's no longer able to move by herself. I believe very strongly in controlling the pain and keeping a good quality of life for my pets. The ability to say that there has been enough pain and to stop it now is one of the few things we can control. So we will. We'll probably send her body to the Veterinary School in Ft Collins where they can perform an autopsy to confirm that it was WHS. If it's positive I'll contact the breeder so she'll stop breeding that line.

4. I've been a greedy little yarn hoarder lately. Not only did I buy the gorgeous Maisy Day pink and green shawl set from Hello Yarn (even though I haven't finished the pumpkin patch one yet), I managed to snag two skeins of Vesper sock yarn (one midnight knitter and one neapolitan). I higly recommend subscribing to her etsy shop's rss feed that's how I managed to grab em before she was bought out. I've also been given the most amazing yarn lately - Lorna's Laces sock yarn, a great pink silk blend from Artful yarns in San Fran, really cool fiber to spin. But I think I mentioned that in a previous post. I should take some yarn porn photos. Especially of the bombyx silk bell. That thing is COOL!

5. I saw a post about fabric by a Japanese designer that used to be in my room when I was a little girl. It was the spookiest thing because I'd totally forgotten about this colorful automobile themed fabric. My mom stretched it over wooden frames like painting canvases and had them hanging in my room. Total freakish flashback when I saw it.

6. This is possibly the most depressing article about body image, women's value, the male gaze, and mental health I've ever read. A beautiful girl has a horrible psychosis - hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, inability to function..the whole deal. The only medication that works for her makes her gain weight. Everyone else is upset by the "loss" of her beauty despite her complete lack in interest in her physical change (presumably because she's happy to not be seeing or hearing things?).

The doctors seem to think the fact that she doesn't have stringent standards of beauty is an indication that she's still "broken". Fuckers. Between the romaniticizing of a beautiful crazy woman, the lack of value in mental health vs. the overvalued beauty standards, the creepiness of her doctor allowing his obvious physical attraction to his patient affect the medication and choice of treatment, not to mention the stilted way in which the article was written makes me, more than ever, Blame the Patriarchy.

7. This, on the other hand, is one of the more inspiring posts I've read in a while. And I read a lot of inspiring posts. Not only do I love the idea of Vanessa Bell, Dorothy Parker, and Henri Matisse being together in the same room, but the idea of sitting around knitting with them..what a delicious idea!

8. On a similar note I've decided, after hemming and hawing about the "commitment" of joining another knitalong, to join Project Spectrum. The concept of knitting with specific colors every month to celebrate the beauty and power of color strikes way too close to home for me to not get involved. So for the Month of March I will be knitting with the Red and Pink Posie color of Silk Road Tweed to make a besotted cable scarf.

9. I'm looking forward to Friday more than I've looked forward to watching the olympics in a long time.

10. Tomorrow will be the one year anniversary of the night I learned to knit. I know. Weird isn't it?

Believe me, I had no idea I would enjoy this particular hobby to this extent. I hadn't been creative with my hands pretty much since finishing my sculpture degree in 1997. Before that I'd been a tactile creator in one form or another since I was a young girl playing on my electric pottery wheel and painting on my little easel. But that myth about it being hard to be creative when you're happy is kind of true.

It's not a coincidence that I also met and moved in with the love of my life that year. Which is funny because I'd broken a lot of barriers that academic year. A set of my paintings had won an award at the annual student show, I'd joined a life drawing group of professional artists, which was also instrumental in changing how I felt about my own body because I discovered that the plumper, curvier models were a LOT more fun to draw. But I'd also had a major depressive episode, been diagnosed with and put on meds to treat depression for the first time, gone through major changes with some important friendships, and been alone with my mother when she had her first seizure, worked for a magazine that quickly went under, and taught myself html in a weekend. It was a weird-ass year.

So after a long incubation period, I started creating with my hands again. And it, as cheesy as it sounds, has changed my life. Oh, believe me, I'm sure I did my share of eye-rolling about the fiber arts when I was playing the macho power tool welding sculptor game. But I'd taken some great classes on women in the arts and already worked with Judy Chicago. I knew the potential of expression, great ideas, of history behind it. But I think it was when I saw Mac post about the knitty womb that really caught my attention. This was feminism and history and creativity coming together in a crazy fun way. Then I saw the Joey Ramone and Joan Jett dolls and Cody overheard me sqeal about the coolness of it all.

I started to fantasize about making my own DeeDee (the smarter, more pensive Ramone) doll. So for giftmas before last Cody bought Stitch and Bitch and Stitch and Bitch Nation for me. Then helped me buy what I needed to get started. Then took me down to see his crafty aunt when we were fixing her computer. She showed me how to do a long tail cast-on and a basic knit stitch. And the rest, as they say, is history. I was hooked.

And thank the gods for it because I finally found something to create with my hands again. I've actually found a way to be creative and feel somewhat financially successful too. The fact that it has hugely calming side effects has been a wonder too. And I've met some great and interesting friends. Which was incredibly important to me when Jocelyn, my best friend and major link to the rest of the world, moved to San Fran. I've been getting out at least once a week. And getting back into the groove of being a proper socialized person again. Not just some cranky feral woman who sleeps by day and is afraid of most people. Well, I'm being a little dramatic but sometimes it felt that way.

So thank you Cody. Thank you Mac. Thank you Knitty and Debbie and my Crafty Aunt-in-law. Thank you to my Albuquerque knitting friends for being so tolerant of my seeming constant need for positive reinforcement about my projects. Thanks you guys.

Ok, I'm off to take care of my little honking hedgehog I think she wants some food.

While driving to the Brazilian Grill (yes for the second time in a week shutIT):

Me: (blah blah meat on sticks...) and they have a neat little salad bar too.

Mr. Man: I think we should take small pieces of celery and carrot and lettuce and sell it as a little salad bar.

Me: ...

Mr. Man: You know, like a fruit and nut bar or a breakfast bar or these new snack bars.

Me (right eyebrow raised, trying to disguise that I'm fighting hysterical laughter so as not to discourage him): ...

Mr. Man (knowing I'm fighting laughter): Don't you make fun of me! We could've made a fortune with my tuna can squeezer idea!

Me (given up any pretense of fighting the laugher): ...

11.
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? R
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? R
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? F
Relationship failed.

10. Now that Half Life 2 is out, I need to refocus my priorities.

9. You have been unsubscribed from my dating list. Please click this link to confirm.

8. I need a lover who understands that 20 hours a day on the Internet is normal.

7. I don't think we should date any more, but we can still be on each other's buddy lists.

6. I'd like a true beauty so I don't have to spend so much time photoshopping your ugly face out of our photos.

5. It's like in X-Men number 135, where Cyclops and Jean Grey (as The Phoenix)...

4. Let's face it. You love Intel, and I'm an AMD man. It's not going to work out.

3. What do you mean your EULA says that once I've removed the shrink wrap I can't return it?

2. After you e-mailed me your full-body shot, I realized I was looking for someone more feminine

1. So long and thanks for all the fish.

I snagged this from Daisy who found it at BBSpot.

He woke me up at six to see if I wanted to go to Best Buy with him but I said I didn't. I also told him about the bad dream I was having where I'd crashlanded a plane with a friend in the wilds of Irondale, walked to the Sam's club, and no one would come get me except this one mean woman who was going to make me drive her jeep but it was a stick shift and they scare me.

He assured me that he and Winter would come get me then turned on the tv and put it on Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory so I could go back to sleep. I have to have the tv on to sleep well it keeps my brain from telling me very bad things that keep me awake.

I drifted for a while until my cellphone rang - a quaint little midi version of Erasure's Give a Little Respect.

Later he just came home with:
- a new monitor because mine was clearly dying. We'd switched monitors last week because I'm on my computer more than he's on his. But he let me have the nifty new one.
- The new Harry Potter dvd.
- Chick-fil-a which he undoubtedly had to sit in line for thirty minutes to get because it's new and the only one in the state.

So, yeah, he resembles a chubby Bob Dylan/grownup Harry Potter crossbreed rather than some sculpted beauty of a man. I've never liked my men prettier than me anyway.

At the end of the day I'd rather be sitting around drinking tea and listening to endless talk about the new Halflife 2 than being handbathed in a giant tub by some naked poptart eyecandy who's too dumb to get my jokes.

Sure I may complain about his scary family. And he's not rich or all that ambitious. But he loves me and would do anything for me.

Including living with three very spoiled cats, a giant spoiled dog, and a grumpy spoiled little hedgehog. Or even driving said dog and hedgehog to get their photos with Santa this weekend. Because as smart and sweet he thinks his wife is she's also kind of paranoid and crazy and has been afraid to drive a car for almost a year.

I haven't read the Harry Potter books although I've meant to. But I really like how depression is personified in this movie. A depressive episode is a lot like having this big dark scary intriguing powerful thing suck away all warmth of memories while only leaving cold lonely shells ..with a need for chocolate (or, in my case, french fries) behind. I don't know a lot about Ms Rowling but I'd be willing to bet she's wrestled with that black dog herself a few times.

We have friends from Alabama visiting this week so there was some initial panic trying to de-frat-house the place. I guess you could call us domestically challenged? It was somewhat short notice. It would've been less short notice if we ever answered the phone when unfamiliar numbers show on the caller id or ever checked our voice mail. We're mostly just embarrassed about our non-checking-voicemail and nasty household habits.

We got the house cleaned for the most part (the public and guest rooms are presentable but past the office door there be dragons). But now their visit has been delayed. So we have a clean house which is always a novel thing for us. It's fun while it lasts. We're hoping to see our friends Thursday or Friday and that they're not very allergic to pets because the guest room is usually the cats' room.

I used this event as an opportunity to buy new sheets and towels for the guest room and bathroom (which is usually my bathroom). There was a clearance sale on swell products at Target and I had a ball buying semi-retro completely mismatched linens. My favorite bits were the groovy multicolored round target bath mat and the martini-glass toothbrush holder.

I've decided that there's just no getting around the seventies suburban look of this house. Combine this with an accidental collection of mid 20th century furniture bought and inherited from different sources over the years the best option is to embrace the suburban retro concept. It's certainly unusual and wouldn't be entirely out of place here. The difference, I guess, is we're doing it in an ironic way, right? Heh.

We also finally got a stucco guy to actually answer his phone, set an appointment, show up for it, give an estimate, and come back to actually do the work! In that order! This is no small task folks. And bonus jackpot: his guys do yardwork as a sideline so now our yard is completely weed-free. It looks amazing. Cost us a fortune but no more hay fever and goathead encrusted ankles for me!

Last week I went into the starbucks while Cody waited in the car. The barista must've been new because it took him a long time to make the drinks. Longer than usual anyway.

So I was checking out the coffee mugs and various toys and found this weird beige stoneware coffee mug with orange stripes that had an orange removable rubber bottom and lid of the same material that fit on top in a very strange way - so strange that I thought it was broken or warped but was actually a feature. I was intrigued by this mug - mostly for it's strangeness and the combination of beige and orangish-burnt sienna stripes. This was a mug only a mother could love, right? I even thought about buying it but didn't.

Cody went into the same starbucks yesterday and when he came out he was carrying a bag. At first I thought he had gotten a new bearista for me but it was the weird orange mug.

These are the moments when you know you're with the right person.

Send Cody telepathic messages to wake up because the gym is open now and I need him to drive me there. I'm going to distract myself by packing my stuff and changing the tunes on my mp3 player.

I'm watching The Fisher King and I've forgotten how depressing it is. I think I went to see it in the theater when it first came out.

Neat fact: I think the 'castle' is an actual museum that has 'The Antioch Chalice' - a cup people think might be the holy grail in it but it's no longer on display. I saw a History's Lost and Found show about it once.

I'm finally back on a nighttime sleeping schedule so I woke up when Cody came home from work this morning. It took me a while to get up because I kept trying to get some more sleep in. I'm going out tonight and I'll probably be out late so I wanted to sleep as late as I could this morning. So I lingered in bed and watched a show about Mary Shelley on The History Channel and tried to doze but the call to pee and get something to drink was too strong. So I finally got up.

Later on when I was sitting at my desk Cody mentioned that he wanted me to read some stories he's been working on. Even handed me his little USB storage drive so I could get to them easier. This surprised me really because I didn't know he was writing again. I knew he'd been flexing his skills a little by writing background stories for his City of Heroes characters but it has been a while since he's written anything he actively wanted me to read. So after talking to my mom a bit this morning I grabbed a cup of coffee, found my glasses, and read two short stories.

I'm so glad he's stopped trying to define what kind of writer he wants to be. I think that's always been a detriment to him - defining the length and genre and all that stuff. I know he was frustrated that his stories were usually too long to be considered 'short stories' but too short to be 'novels' when, ultimately, it didn't matter. When a work is good it's just good.

Hell I'd be in a serious mess if I tried to define what style I paint or draw in - even though I haven't in, oh, five years. "Late Abstract Expressionist three-dimensional figural painting"? Who knows.

One story I've read before but many years ago during his last creative writing class at UNM and he's changed it a good deal. It's more personal now. With a male voice this time which makes it a lot better. A story told by a woman to a man who's remembering it which isn't complicated but adds some interest. I like it from his point of view better because I never entirely understood hers. And neither does the narrator now which makes it more understandable to me.

I didn't know some of the details about the period of time he's writing about here but after growing up reading Nicole's work I'm really good about separating the writer from the family or situations that inspired their stories. Look at what they're saying not what they're saying about you. I think having been the model for so many friends during school did a lot to teach that detachment too. Somewhere there are plaster casts of me made into a shrine to the Virgin Mary with exposed breasts. That kind of thing teaches you to not get too involved in how the artist feels about you personally because the I "gaaaroooonteee" the guy that did it wasn't putting me on any pedestal.

He wrote the other story just last night so it's fairly rough but I love the idea. It's about garden fairies but told in a different way - none of that floaty magic nonsense - this is told from the perspective of a biologist, specifically, an entomologist. And it's pretty damn funny. I hope it's supposed to be. Yeah, I think it is. With some work that one's going to be pretty good.

There are two more to read but I'm not sure if I'll get around to them today.

Now if I could get my butt in gear and paint my Frankenstein.

This was damn near the perfect weekend for me. Cody worked until friday morning. I accidently took a nap that lasted most of the day then woke up around 11 pm or so and watched Dave Navarro win at celebrity poker then took a long bath and read for a while.

Early Saturday morning we took Winter to the dog park and she got lots of playing time with normal, well-behaved dogs which was nice. Then we came back and took a nap again because we had to go down to his parents house Saturday night. His grandfather is quite ill so Cody's mom was up there making him dinner so we joined them. We were also behind on some tech support at a few houses so Cody worked at his aunt's house while I checked the one at his parents house. We aren't very reliable for a lot of things as far as these folks are concerned - we don't call often or come to a lot of their parties or remember birthdays but we usually build a new computer to give the family about every year and a half when we gut and upgrade our old systems. And we go down to Los Lunas every few months and work on stuff. So while I was working on his parents' computer I went over to Dooce's site to show photos of her hair to my mother-in-law because she offered to cut it for me. She hasn't had a shop in a few years but she's always happy to cut my hair when it needs it and while the great color job I got back in Birmingham for Wedfest '04 was great my hair was getting scraggly and annoying with all the swimming. Now it's about chin length just like I like it. Then we went to the big scary Wal Mart on the way home so Cody could get some nicorette patches - which were supposed to be forty-three dollars but kept ringing up as ten. We had the girl check and everything but ten dollars it was.

We didn't get home until about 3 am and I got to sleep around 5:30. Then Jocelyn came to the house at about 2 I think and we went to the gym. The location we usually go to had its pool closed for cleaning so we went on to a different one. What's the point of working out if I don't get my swimming reward?? My house is pretty much exactly between those two locations but we decided we like our usual location better. I'm really getting into a good routine with it but I'm noticing it's getting harder to get my heart rate up to where I want it which is good.

So after much stretching/cardio bike/weight lifting in various forms/water aerobicising/kickboarding/doing laps I showered and really enjoyed my short hair then Jocelyn dropped me off and Cody took me for sushi..again!!

Like I said, perfect weekend. If only we could keep the dog from locking herself in the bathroom when we leave...

Have I mentioned that Cody is a saint? He is ya know.

Yes pagan anti-religious-establishment me is married to a certifiable patron saint of geeky, patient husbands everywhere. He puts up with my yoyo dieting, spoiled mountain brook girl, obsessive compulsive, non-driving, agoraphobic, depression episodic, goofy, pet obsessed self and actually LOVES me DESPITE, and in some cases, BECAUSE of my insanity. I have some great recent examples of his saintly behavior.

First off, he works nights. Seven pm to seven am. Yes it's a twelve hour shift but it's not really that demanding. Just monitoring the state-wide wireless network and the database of ticket sales for the lottery so he really only has to sit around and check that everything's working every fifteen minutes. That's how he's managed to teach himself Dutch, Visual Basic, and Java in the last few months. He's also programmed some nifty things for work and they've sent him around to other states to help out there sometimes. Guess I should mention he doesn't work the usual Monday to Friday schedule either. It alternates - two on, two off, three on, three off. So he works every other weekend. We like this schedule actually. We don't have kids so there's really no reason why we *must* be on a day schedule with weekends off. We like getting to run errands on weekdays and going out to dinner/breakfast on weeknights. This also excuses us from various weekend family obligations too I might add!

So he worked last night. Seven pm to seven am. Before he went to work he knew that I was missing getting to the gym on friday so he said if I got ready by seven-thirty this morning he'd take me and go sit at the starbucks next-door with his laptop. My gym trips usually involve one hour of cardio and resistance work then I reward myself with a sauna and swim (or catch a water aerobics class) for another hour. Swimming makes me so happy. Really, I lovelovelove being in water. So I stayed at the gym until 9:45 and he was waiting in the car outside but he was still nice enough to let me get one of those new light frappucinos before we left.

Not convinced of his sainthood? Ok lemme tell you about thursday morning..

The morning of all our tree guy appointments we were sitting around in the office waiting for the first one to show up. He'd made two big mugs of coffee and brought one to me. So a few minutes and sips later we had swung our chairs to face each other and were talking about new games coming out or something - we're both pretty interested in Vampire the Masquerade since we'd played the card game a bit - then I turned back to face my monitor and *whack* knocked the coffee mug over spilling almost an ENTIRE BIG MUG into my keyboard! Eee!

So I was frantically toweling the desk off and trying to get all the coffee. I tilted the keyboard..hehehe...and coffee came POURING out of the lower corner of the keyboard. Naturally things were freaking out on the screen all kinds of shit was going on because this was a year-old logitech that has lots of shortcut buttons and volume controls. We're laughing hysterically too because the sight of that coffee pouring out of the keyboard was just fucking hilarious.

So he goes straight to Best Buy to get a new keyboard for me. This really was the first time I'd spilled shit directly into my keyboard like this I swear so he was going to just get me a new wired logitech like his with the volume dial instead of buttons because they were kind of annoying.

(I'd like to point out that in the meantime NONE of the tree guys that were supposed to be there before noon had shown or called)

Cody comes back about twenty minutes later with a new keyboard and MUST get it hooked up for me immediately. Know how most guys are about cars running perfectly for their wives or girlfriends? This is pretty much how he is about our computers. As long as the car starts and drives noise-free he doesn't really notice much else about it. But his wife MUST have a fully-functioning computer system and access to the internet at ALL TIMES. Hee.

So he's up under my desk doing wild contortions trying to reach behind my tower, which is snugly tucked away under the monitor with one of those weird cd drive opener windows in the top of my desk. He's trying to avoid lifting my giganto hernia-inducing monitor. But the cord for my old keyboard is in the way so he asks for me to pull on it. So I climb over him to do just that. But while doing so I also lift the coffee-soaked keyboard and MORE COFFEE dribbles out, goes through the desk's open window thingie and lands on his back. He'd taken his shirt off when he got home so it was the perfect naked target. So he starts yelling at the dog because he thinks she's licking him on the back LOL. Then he sees that she's sitting on her bed, head tilted, watching mom pour cold coffee down dad's back so he asks "What the hell is that?". I hadn't really noticed up to that point that I was pouring cold keyboard coffee onto my husband's unsuspecting saintly back. When I did I started laughing uncontrollably (causing more coffee to gush out) and he crawled out from under the desk and let me towel him off. He ended up having to lift the monitor and taking out the shelf to access the tower anyway.

And he wasn't even mad. In fact he thought it was pretty funny.

See? A SAINT I'm tellin ya!

Only one of the tree guys showed up that day.

Reading this article reminded me of how surprised I was when I ran across Jeff Bridges' official website. It's probably not suitable for dialup but I like all the freaky little drawings and things - which I think are his but someone else does the web design. He seems to be a pretty cool guy.

Here's a story I found on his site sometime last year and liked it so much I sent to a few friends. I still like it.

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. they all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then,to everyone's amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well, and was astonished at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off! Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up!

MORAL: WHEN YOU TRY TO COVER YOUR ASS, IT ALWAYS COMES BACK TO GET YOU.

Ok I'm having a seriously crappy day. The cats are all being little whiny hyperactive brats and have been since the second I woke up, the dog looks like she needs antidepressants and is limping around because she strained herself at the dog park on Saturday, the hedgehog..well the hedgehog's always grumpy, and all kinds of stupid household stuff flared up today. Then my mother-in-law called for tech support because something funky was going on with internet explorer 5x - perish the thought! I think we may have finally gotten the toilet tank to stop leaking though.

I am now going to the gym then getting some sushi dammit and no one can stop me! And I might stop and get the new janet evanovich too. That'll show em.

Hey, when are you people going to sell kid's cuppa again??

Cody's at work and I keep smelling his scent. Not like stinky body odor just that combination of shampoo, deoderant, and something else, something sweet that all combine to smell like my husband. I kept wondering what was going on then realized the shirt he wore yesterday is on the back of my chair. Something kind of comforting about that.

I know that when my mom and dad were trying to conceive me - they'd been trying for years but had a few miscarriages - Dad would come home during lunch. With a hyperactive seven year old and a heavy phone company executive job they didn't have a lot of time for each other. Mom would always really miss him on the days she was ironing his shirts - because the steam would bring out his smell even after they'd been washed. So dad would ask her in the morning if she was going to be doing any ironing that day as a sort of *winkwink* thing.

Cute story. I think some people would get creeped out hearing that kind of thing about their parents but I think it's sweet. As far as I know they're still pretty sexually active and that's really fucking cool - hope we're that happy in our sixties. That story makes Mom sound like Donna Reed though which is hilarious because I think she was in grad school at the time getting her master's in math.