Here's to 2010

the year that was not quite as bad as the one before. I'm not going to be sorry to see it go, though it was much better than 2009. In 2010, I learned about loss, about family, about love, and about myself.

This year, I lost my Aunt Joan. She was my grandmother, and I think about her often. My Aunt Anna Marie lost her mother, who was another grandmother-figure to me, and another strong, wonderful woman. I miss them both, and will do my best to honor their memories. We lost so many other family members that one of my hopes for 2011 is that it will be the year nobody dies.

In 2010, I learned what it's like to enjoy your job and to contribute in a real way to a company's success. Conversely, I learned what it's like to be told you're no longer contributing, and to handle professional adversity with professionalism and class (mostly, anyway).

This year, I reminded myself how strong I am and trained and raised money and walked in the SGK 3 Day for the Cure. It's still one of the best things I have ever done, ever, and is likely to remain high on the list. I didn't honestly think I could walk as far as I did, or that I would be as moved as I was to participate in such a huge, joyful event. It turns out, sometimes my body doesn't fail me.

2010 was a year of love. I spent more time with my Jersey friends and my family than I have in a long time, and I have made some amazing new friends who I am honored to know so well. I put as much love out into the world as I could, and have had so much love returned to me.

I learned that I can push myself hard and that I can do amazing things. I also learned that when I push myself too hard, I make myself sick and miserable and that nobody benefits from that. So for this next year, I'm going to concentrate on making time for myself, to do the things I do for me. Blogging is on that list, and so is cooking. I can count the number of home-cooked meals I have eaten this month on one hand. That's not healthy or fun.

What 2010 wasn't a year of was time or balance or rest. It ended up being a year of frantic running and squeezing time for me and the practical bits of living (like laundry and vacuuming) in around everything else. I gave so much of myself and my time that I didn't have any of me left for me. So I'm working on deciding between two themes for 2011, either peace or balance. I could use more of both in my life.

So here's to a 2011 with more blogging (some of it might be interesting), more relaxing, more real food, more enjoying the moments I'm in, and just as much love (can't start slacking now). Here's to a 2011 with less insane schedules, no major losses, and much less drama.

In Review:
--Phew, 2010 was a bad time to be part of our family. We had a lot of losses.
--2010 definitely = love. Much love. So hey, mission accomplished.
--2011=? Either peace or balance. We'll see which speaks to me more over the next few days.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

I love Christmas. It's my favorite time of the year. I love the magic, and the glow that everything has, and that for one small part of the year, people are willing to give and to create joy for others. But here it is, two weeks before Christmas, I'm not feeling it. I'm not ready. I have looked within myself to find that inner child who glories in the lights and the songs and the giving and you know what? She seems to be sleeping. Or maybe she wandered off.

I don't know quite why it is, but I am just not thrilled for Christmas. The house isn't decorated yet, we don't have a tree, and I haven't done any of my shopping yet. I'm not humming carols, I'm not baking cookies, I'm not bullying other people into enjoying the season.

Maybe it's because I'm tired. I feel as though I've spent the entire year running, filling every spare moment of my time. I have been better about saying no sometimes, but my free time is still packed full. I keep telling myself it's only a few more weeks, and then things will calm down. But that never actually happens. I'm starting to realize that there is no calm. And I take a day off every now and then and spend the day in bed lounging. But that never-finished to do list keeps niggling in the back of my mind.

Maybe it's because I enjoyed Thanksgiving so much. The day with my family at the parents' place was great, and Second Thanksgiving here was a lot of fun. We finally finished most of the leftovers (which I loved) and I got to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, which is something I love. Goodness knows I have so much to be thankful for, and that I remember it every day.

Maybe it's because I got demoted at work. Last week, I was called into the HR office and told that I was no longer qualified for my job, and that it was being phased out of our social media strategy. I'm back to answering phones, working in the Customer Service department. I lost the first job I've ever actually liked, and there's no chance of my being able to do anything similar to it. I'm good at customer service, and that's where my company plans to use me. So hey, I'm not unemployed. I'm not even making any less money. But I hate customer service. And I hate feeling like I've taken such a step backwards in the company.

Maybe it's because things with Jim still aren't great. I talked to him in October and told him what I need, want, and won't compromise on in the future (marriage, children, and a fair division of housework). I told him he has a whole year to figure out what his goals are (for us and in general), and then we can discuss whether those are compatible or not. But I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that he is going to decide he's not prepared to discuss marriage and children as a definite (i'm not saying we need to be married in a year or anything, but i need to know that jim is okay with it and it will happen. same with kids. i am by no means ready yet, but when i am, i don't want to find out that jim can't stand the thought of having children). It feels like I'm spending the next several months trying not to say goodbye, which isn't fair to Jim. He has plenty of time to do some soul-searching, and he may yet surprise me. I am certainly hoping he is.

So I don't know if any one of these things, or a combination of all of them is keeping me from getting in to Christmas this year. But really, if we were to skip it all together this year, I'd be okay with it. I'm really hoping that I'll get into the groove next week, when we get a tree, finish the decorating (we'll start this week) and I do the grocery shopping for Christmas dinner. We'll see. Here's hoping that you're ready and waiting for Christmas morning, with better spirits than I can scrape up.

Quickest Blog Ever...

Since we had Thanksgiving dinner with my parents (it was wonderful) but also had a free 20 pound turkey from our local grocery store, we are having what I think of as Second Thanksgiving today. Mainly because I need leftovers. Though, there will be ten of us tonight, so I'm not sure how many leftovers there will actually be. Between me, Jim, Colleen, my parents, his parents, Kate and Patrick, and my wonderful friend Laura, we should give that turkey a pretty good go. It's soaking in a brine upstairs now (coldest part of the house, and I don't want this to go down in history as "the year emily gave everybody food poisoning") so I have to go turn it and put it in the oven soon. My secondary goal is to finish the handspun scarf for me. I have a tiny ball of yarn left and no plans for tomorrow, so this might happen. Hope you're having a fantastic weekend!

WIP Roundup

Fair warning, this is a picture heavy post! I have long suspected, and today confirmed, that I am much better at starting projects than I am at finishing them. I think I've rounded up most of my current WIPs (and if i haven't, i'm pretty sure i don't want to know what i'm missing), and I'm going to list them here.

I'd planned a couple of blogs over the last week or so, but after visiting my family for the Halloween candy swap, I came down with a nasty bug and spent the last week pretty much going to work, coming home, and going to bed. Now that I'm able to stay awake past ten pm, I should be able to get some decent content going again.

Here's everything all jumbled into one big, glorious pile of potential. It doesn't look like a lot, but I knit at the approximate pace of molasses heading up a hill in the snow, so it's going to take me a few months to whittle this pile down a little. A surprising number of these things are for me, which means that they will probably take longer to finish than anything else in the pile. Let's take a closer look, shall we?
(please note the excellent backdrop--it's the blanket that Roxie sent me last year and it is wonderful. they're "friends from outer space")

This is the first item for me, it's a scarf made from some pretty merino handspun. This is the one you saw at the beach, and it was doing really well until I realized I left out a row and that the wrong side had become the right side about ten inches back. It's only a four-row feather and fan lace pattern, but as I keep discovering, I can't count to ten on a regular basis.

Detail shot of the handspun. I couldn't get the colors quite right, and this is the closest I was able to get. There are a lot of colors mixed together, and it's a two-ply so there's a lot of barberpole going on here, but it's pretty neat to see the blocks or rows of one color develop as I knit.




This is a random rectangle I was knitting, probably while I was drugged last summer. Near as I can tell, it's a small dish towel. I'll probably finish this one fairly quickly and put it aside as a Christmas present or use it to wrap something in. It's just a big, plain red rectangle.


Here we have a long-standing WIP, it's the beginning of a huge scarf for a huge guy. It's bulky weight yarn knit on small needles, so it'll be bullet proof when it's done. It's sort of a pain to knit with such chunky yarn, and I don't think I bought nearly enough, so this one needs some supplies before I finish it. Guess I need to buy some yarn. What a hardship!

Here's a detail shot of one of the socks I've been working on for forever. It's an easy pattern (lacy mock cables by kat @ the island of misfit patterns) but it met with an unfortunate accident involving some scissors in the work basket. I'll need to frog a few rows back and try to repair it. I'm at the last few inches of the foot, so I should really stop putting that off, now that I think about it.


Here we have a triangle made out of recycled sari yarn. It's going to be a gift, but I ran out of yarn for this (i'm starting to pick up a pattern, are you?) and I'll need to order more. The yarn was a Christmas gift, and it's fun to work with, but it freaks my poor camera out (why is there a "cuisine" setting, but not one for knitting?).


I mentioned that I knitted two pairs of gift socks while training for the 3 day, right? After all that, I decided to treat myself to a pair of socks for me. I'm not normally a pink person, but this shade of baby pink doesn't bother me...much. It's actually kind of pretty. I'm getting ready to work the heel flap on the first one, I'm using an easy two row pattern but the heel instructions are a little weird, so we'll see how that goes.

This is a picture of not one, but two Brangians. The red one will be a gift, and the green one in the background is for me. The green is Knitpicks shadow in Cattail and the red is Jaggerspun in Zephyr. Both are beautiful yarns, but I like the Shadow just a little better, it feels softer to me. I think I'll work on one of these today while watching the good (BBC) version of Pride and Prejudice.

Last but not least, we have a proto-sock for Colleen. It's the same pattern I'm using for my pink socks (i'm picking up another theme here, i just love making multiples of things. no issues with second sock syndrome here) and since they'll be short and Coll has tiny feet, they should be reasonably quick to knit. The yarn is something I picked up at a really deep discount, it's very soft and pretty thick for socks. They'll be bed socks, rather than out and about socks.

That wraps up the WIP list, thankfully. It's time to put a movie on and try to make a dent in the pile. I have enough here to keep me busy for a while, and I'm sure I'll get distracted along the way by something new or different to add to the list. I'm optimistic, though--most of these will be finished by about 2043 or so.

All Summer In one Post...

and the first part of fall, too. Between training and fundraising for the 3 Day, trying to catch up with friends and family, and well, life things have been insane. Good, but insane. So here's a catchup post, to let everybody know where I've been. After this, I should be posting fairly regularly again, since the 3 Day is over and I'll have time again. At least until it's time to think about next year's event.

I spent most of my training on a treadmill. It gets boring really, really fast. This is the first pair of socks I knitted on the treadmill, they took about 6 weeks, I think. I'm immensely proud of them, since they're both the same size, and they fit the friend I made them for pretty well.

This summer, we had a ton of tomatoes. I vastly overestimated the number of plants we needed, or could really fit into the garden bed. They overflowed their supports and we lost a few. But for most of the summer, we had fresh delicious tomatoes that were such a deep, rich red it was hard to believe they were real. Along with tomatoes, I planted sunflowers and marigolds. Sadly, the marigolds never came up, but I'll try again next year. I love the colors of those simple little flowers, and I'd like to see how they do as a dye product. I also planted a little thyme plant, because it's one of my favorite smells ever. And there's a basil plant in a container that's hip-high and smells wonderful whenever I brush by it. We'll be getting frost overnight here soon, so it will be time to bring it inside and see how well it does over the winter. I might have to investigate drying my own herbs in the near future.

I went to my sorority alumna formal this August. That's me in the blue dress in the middle of the picture there. We all look a little demonic because of all the flashes going off at once. I found the dress at a local Ross, after trying on several others that just didn't work. It's floor-length, deep blue, and I felt like a lady in it. My hair was pulled back in an elegant bun, until the dancing started. It was a great night, and I got to re-connect with a lot of wonderful women. Colleen was my date, since Jim doesn't do the dancing, crowds of women, or sorority traditions very well.


Speaking of Jim, he and I took a couple of days and went to the beach before our anniversary this year (we went kayaking to celebrate officially, but i wasn't going to bring my camera out there, since i'm rather fond of it). We snuggled, walked hand in hand down the boardwalk, lost a few dollars at the slot machines, and walked on the beach in the moonlight. It was a great trip, but it led to a long, serious discussion. Jim reads the blog, and I don't know how much he's comfortable with me sharing, so I'll just say that he isn't sure what his plans for the future--our future--are, and that when the lease is up, I'll have some things to figure out, and we'll leave it at that. I'm hoping things work out for the best, but I don't really know where things will go. It's tough.


This is Nom Nom Bronto. He lives at my office on the wall of the cubicle I share with a great guy named Phil. We use a company called Bronto for our marketing emails, and they send these little guys out to all their clients. Those clients then take the brontos all over the world with them when they go on trips. The bronto has never been to a 3 Day, though, and since I hate getting my picture taken, he made a great stand-in. This is a picture of him at the very first stop on the very first day. I carried him all the time I was walking, and he was a great conversation starter. Lots of people wanted to know what he represented, but since we were usually walking, I tended to go with the short answer--he's awesome! I have a ton of pictures of Nom Nom, and one of him at closing ceremonies that I wanted to upload, but blogger isn't cooperating right now, so I'll put them up later in the week.

I'll spend a little more time on the 3 Day and then try not to dwell. I walked mostly with one of my teammates who is awesome, and did some walking with a teammate that I don't like, and can't make myself think well of. The cool teammate and I finished the walk, and we walked about 50 miles over the 3 days. It was hard as hell, I won't lie. We took a bus or a van a few times, since we didn't want to injure ourselves. But we helped raise some of the 5.7 million dollars that Philadelphia brought in, we met some wonderful people, we helped raise awareness about a disease that takes far, far too many women from us, and we pushed ourselves to do something pretty amazing.

I realized that after that, I don't have any excuses. What I mean is, I can't really tell myself something is beyond me any more. I also can't hate my body, or dismiss it. This body, this willpower, carried me through an amazing journey. I did something I didn't think I actually could, something that a lot of people can't. It was hard, and it hurt (ask me how much fun I had hobbling and treating my few blisters--and i'm in relatively good shape) but I trained and pushed my limits and found that it was harder to reach those limits than I thought it was.

I am incredibly fortunate, I haven't lost anybody I love to breast cancer. My family is full of survivors of various cancers, though, and I walked for them, and for some wonderful people who've been lost to other kinds of cancer. I walked for myself, to prove that I was "back", and I walked for the daughters I might have one day. Most of the walk felt a little surreal, and since I wasn't a breast cancer survivor and hadn't lost someone, I felt a little out of place. And then, we walked by houses decorated with signs that said things like "A survivor lives here. Thank you for walking" and "I'm a living statistic. Susan G. Komen saved my life, I wouldn't be here without the treatments they helped research." and suddenly, I felt like I was a part of this, and I was helping and making a difference. That's an incredibly powerful feeling, and I want to be part of this event for a long time. I can help change the world, who can possibly say no to that?

It's getting late, and I have to go back to the real world tomorrow, so it's time to wrap this up.
In review:
--Holy shit, it's been a long time since I wrote a real entry.
--I'll be back to posting semi-regularly again, though. I miss blogging, and I have a lot more free time now.
--I walked about 50 miles in 3 days and helped raise a buttload of money for a great cause. Sometimes, I don't suck.
--This summer I grew some things, went to the beach a few times, got dressed up for a formal, and walked a lot.
--This fall I am going to take more baths, spend more time relaxing and spinning, and knit a pair of socks for me (since i've knitted two pairs as gifts this summer. that's right. two pairs, one summer).
--I really, really want a cookie.

Quickie....

...to let everyone know that there will be a full entry (sadly, the first in months) on Monday after I've completed the SGK 3 Day for the cure. Training to walk 60 miles in 3 days and raising the required amount of money had taken over my life and a lot of things have fallen by the wayside. The only thing that hasn't, now that I think about it, is my knitting. I've finished two pairs of socks in less than six months, it's a little crazy for me. So, pictures and a retrospective summer blog on Monday. I hope everybody has a fantastic weekend.

Simple Gifts

Momolla's post inspired me today, so I'm going to throw a quick blog out. Things have continued to be hectic, in a more subdued way, and I think it would be good to spend a few minutes being thankful. Right now, I'm grateful that:


* I managed twenty-five minutes on an eliptical machine today. A year ago, I wasn't allowed to go near the things.
* I am healthy and strong enough to walk ten miles at a go (like i did this past saturday).
* I finished my first treadmill socks and am sending them to a dear, dear friend. I also have another quick present in the works for someone special.
* It's nice to be in a position where I have enough to pay my bills and a little extra to buy presents with sometimes.
* I picked two handfuls of tomatoes from my garden today. A few cherries, some romas, and a couple of beefsteaks. They should be delicious.
* There's just been a thunderstorm and everything is fresh and cool and smells wonderful.
* The kitchen is (relatively) clean. And the laundry is done. And the bathroom is clean.
* I'm plying the merino I've been spinning since May. It will be gorgeous.
* Today, I woke up next to a wonderful man who I love deeply. I'll probably fall asleep next to him, too.
* There is about two pounds of fudge in the fridge (please feel free to come eat some of it! there's plenty to go around)
* I have a job that I like and I work for a company that regards me as an asset, not a hindrance.
* I can wear high heels to work. They make me feel so feminine and confident.
* I have a group of wonderful online knitting friends who I can share these things with.
* There is a nook in the mail for me, it should be here tomorrow (courtesy jim and a friend from work, mostly!).

That's all I have for the moment. I hope you all have a day (or night) full of sweet things to be thankful for. (i am fighting the urge to add a smiley right here. stupid day job on the internet!)