she's blogging...must be the cable is out...

...or the Dish, anyway. A whole big load of wet heavy snow came sliding off the roof the other night and sheared my Dish right off the side of my house. I've been without TV ever since. Oh, the humanity!!

Actually, it hasn't been that bad. I have Season 3 of Lost that I've reacquainted myself with and become hopelessly addicted to again. There's knitting to be done. There are games to be played on the computer. Clearly, one CAN live without TV.

One just...doesn't really want to. I had a lot of stuff saved up on the DVR that I was really looking forward to watching, and a lot more stuff scheduled to record that now isn't being recorded. I hope I don't lose everything I had on there. That would really yank my angry-chain.

Know what else yanks the angry-chain? I started getting these mystery texts this morning on the way to work. Someone was trying to carry on a convo with me via text, but I had no clue who they were. It became evident as the day wore on that it was a teenager. Let's just say there were a lot of extraneous "LOLz" and bad grammar skills that tipped me off. Anyway, so I kept replying to this person, telling her (I didn't learn it was a her until later) that I was NOT who ever she thought I was. It stopped for a while, so I figured I was in the clear. Then out of the blue this evening, she starts hitting me again. "Oh come on, Kyle...it's Summer! You know me! LOLz!" That's how I figured out she was a she. I wrote back a very terse reply of "For the 14th time, I am not Kyle and I don't know who you are but if you text me again, I'm calling the police and telling them you're harassing me. Get it?"

It's been blisfully quiet ever since. I think she got it.

silent night

"Silent night,
Holy night,
All is calm,
All is bright..."

Falling snow has a wonderful way of dampening out noise and putting me in a peaceful, contemplative mood. Standing out in the swirling, sparkling white, all the little things that have bothered me this week just seem to have dried up and blown off with the wind. I'm left with a cold white emptiness in my soul. Not loneliness, but silence. Peace.

A snowstorm like this and what it does for me spiritually seems fitting so close to Yule. The winter solstice is about rebirth and planning for the future. In most Wiccan traditions, some variation of a story is told of the Sun god being born again to begin to warm Mother Earth, bringing her out of the torpor of winter so that she can flourish once more. The peacefulness that I feel tonight after watching the snow fall around me and feeling the deep silence of the Earth welcoming her clean white blanket brings me hope for a happy and prosperous new year.

So, whether you're celebrating the solstice, Christmas, or Hannukah, I wish you health, happiness, and the opporunity to find your own moments of blessed silence and pure, unadulterated peace.

peeves

Because I'm somewhat grumpy and have had a day full of eye-twitch-inducing moments, I feel like listing some pet peeves. If you don't like it, don't read it...problem solved.

- When I tell someone "Oh, that's alright" after they apologize for screwing something up, and they come back with "No, it's not. I need to do better!" Ok, well...beat yourself up about it, then. I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it.

- People who spend all kinds of time and energy constructing signatures for their work emails that have catchy corporate slogans, italic text, multiple colors of text and different font sizes...and yet have misspelled or misused words in them. No, I'm not always Captain Grammer, but when I send work emails I make sure they're at least spelled correctly.

- Close talkers. I like my space. I can hear you just fine from over here. I don't need you to be 2 inches from my face. It's not going to make your conversation seem any more witty.

- Having to bitch and whine and beg to get someone to do something they said they were going to do anyway. If you have no intention of doing it, don't say you're going to do it, and I won't ride you relentlessly about it for days on end.

- People who never grew out of bad middle-school habits, like "Will you tell so-and-so that I (fill in the blank)? I'm too shy / embarassed / angry / whatever to tell them myself." Are you fucking kidding me? You're middle-aged. If you can't tell another adult that you have a problem with whatever it is they're doing that bothers you, then obviously it doesn't bother you ALL that much.

- Fly-by farters. I'm sitting here minding my own business, working away, when there's a sudden stench all around me. This happens to be in conjunction with a certain person retreating out the door quickly. Oh, hai...you couldn't clench for just 10 seconds more to take two steps across the room and cut the cheese out THERE? Thanks for that. I'll just sit here and suffer in the wake of your ass-wind for the next 10 minutes until it finally dissipates. What the hell did you eat that makes you smell like that, by the way? You might want to get that checked before your sphincter rots out.

busy busy

Work has been super busy lately. Tons going on...some exciting, some just annoying.

I've been knitting and knitting and knitting, every chance I get. I have Christmas knitting all over the place. I made a hat for Mark's step-dad, some mittens for his mom, a pair of socks for my mom and a pair of socks for my dad...and probably more that I'm forgetting. Plus, I have co-workers asking me to knit them stuff once Christmas is over!! I'm going to start charging for special orders if they keep up!

Which, speaking of knitting, I need to get back to it. Pictures coming soon, I promise!

shopping expedition

I went to Concord to shop with my mom today. We called it Christmas shopping, but it was pretty one-sided. In my favor. Normally, my mom buys me gift certificates at the mall at a couple stores I like, and that's the bulk of my Christmas presents, which is totally fine with me. This year rather than give me the gift cards, we just went to the stores and I picked stuff out, tried it on and she bought it. I don't get to have it till Christmas, but two weeks isn't too long to wait for new clothes, really.

So that's basically what we did all day today. We tried on clothes. And more clothes. Aaaaand more clothes. I learned several valuable lessons during this shopping trip:

1. My mom is incapable of not flinching and cringing approximately every 45 seconds when we are on the interstate and I'm driving. It's not even that I'm a bad driver. I'm not. I've only ever had fender-benders, and those have all been when I was trying to park. My actual driving skills are much better than my parking skills. But anyway, my point is that my mom has this huge irrational fear of riding with me when we're on the interstate, and it gets old about...oh...30 minutes into the ride.

2. I went down not one pant size, but in fact two. Yee haw, bitches! I was pretty psyched about that.

3. Getting measured for bra sizing is the best thing ever. Ok, that sounded bad, but really it is. I tried on 4 different sizes of bras before I finally gave up and asked for help. Turns out that my band size went down and my cup size went up...at the same time. The funny part was, the sales lady swore up and down that I was probably "barely a C" before she measured me...and found out I was actually a DDD...hah! Apparently I was quite a bit smaller in the ribs than she was giving me credit for.

4. The ahi tuna chopped salad at The Outback is not as good as it sounds. I thought the seared ahi would be hot on top of the salad...but it was definitely not. I'm not a fan of cold fish, unless it's wrapped up in rice and nori, and even then it's iffy.

5. When my mom says she wants to stop at Dunkin Donuts for a coffee on the way home, what she really means is that she wants donuts. She'll forget all about the coffee once you get to the drive-thru speaker.

6. I still hate my legs and can't bring myself to buy and wear skirts, even though I really WANT to. I just...can't. My legs are a lot smaller than they used to be, but still. No. No can do on the skirts, unless they're full length...and then I look like some sort of weird amalgamation of hippy and goth and that's...well. It's just not a good idea.

7. Old Navy sizes run on the redonkulous side of small. We're talking...smiz-all. At least for their fat-girl clothes. They call something a 2X and it's skin-tight on me. Anywhere else, a 2x fits just fine. I dunno. Weird.

there's something missing...

So, today is my family's Thanksgiving dinner. My parents had stuff going on Thursday and Friday, so we're having it today. I was informed on Monday that my contribution is supposed to be pie.

"Ok, pie. I can do pie," I thought.

True to form, I then spent the next three days pouring over every cookbook, recipe website, and magazine I could find, agonizing over what kind of pie to make. This is what I do. I make simple things much harder than they need to be. It's a God-given talent...what can I say?

Last night I finally caved and said "Fine! I'll just do a cherry pie and have it over with!", and that was that. This morning whilst grocery shopping with my mom, I pick up the pie crust, (I'm perfectly willing to invest the time and effort to make MANY things from scratch, because I believe it yields a superior product...but pie crust? No fucking way. Not worth it.), I pick up the cherry filling, I pick up the eggs I'll need for the egg-wash for the crust. I go blissfully about my shopping, and eventually come home to put my purchases away. I can't help but have this nagging feeling that I've forgotten something. I poke around the house a little, do some stuff, then decide to get the pie in the oven so it's ready in plenty of time for this evening. I get everything all assembled and ready to go on the counter, and then I realize exactly what I'm missing:

pie plate.

That's right. I don't have a friggin' PIE PLATE. I have muffin tins, I have cake pans, I have cookie sheets, I even have a god damned Bundt pan...but a pie plate? Nope. No dice. Nothing even remotely deep and round except my cake pans, and those have straight sides so I can't use those.

So now, my friends, I'm off to try and find foil pie plates. So annoying.

oh hai, hallo!

Well, then. Apparently I haven't blogged in 3 months. How lame of me! And yet...it doesn't FEEL like it's been that long, honestly. I'm afraid to report that not a WHOLE lot has happened in 3 entire months. The key points have basically been:

- I started taking a tai chi class, and I love love love it. It's fun and challenging and interesting, and it makes me feel really good. It's something I can see myself doing for the rest of my life.

- Mark was here for a week at the end of October, which was great. We had a nice relaxed week, and managed to decide on a venue for the wedding. YAY! Now to pay for it...eep. ;)

- I finally had my gallbladder removed on Nov 6th. Surgery wasn't nearly as bad as I'd thought it would be. In fact, I was pretty impressed with my not-freaking-out-ishness over the whole thing. I feel much better without the gallbladder, and I just got cleared to go back to tai chi class yesterday. So, yay!

Other than that, I've just been working, knitting, and planning a wedding. Oh, and trying to eat well and exercise more, of course. I'm down 70lbs from what I was at my heaviest in January. I feel like a totally different person. I have loads more energy and I'm less depressed. I've still got a long way to go, but I've come this far and I'm not going back. One day at a time...I know I can do it!

Now that I have internets at home, I want to try and be better about blogging again, especially since it's so freaking cold and dark by the time I get home now...boo.