A Big Mail Day

Today in the mail:

1.  A postcard from London for Charlotte

2.  A wedding invitation for a dear friend

3.  A literary magazine, with a piece of mine published inside

Double the knitting.

I haven't posted about projects lately.  Mostly I've been trying to find an organization scheme that works for my living room and makes it look less busy, and more functional.  I have a lot of plans for that....but they are mostly cut short by the lack of time for me to implement them.  So, what have I been doing to fill in the gaps between working, parenting, and daily chores?  Reading and knitting.  Knitting and reading.  And not updating blogs.

I don't know if I've mentioned it in this forum, but my sister is currently pregnant.  I started crocheting an afghan right away, sort of trying to replicate these ripple afghans my mom has.  Since both crochet & ripples have come back in style (chevrons!), it was a no-brainer.  And then my sister found out she was having twins.  And I had to come up with a second blanket.

I wanted to make it completely different - I have known some twins in my life, and the truth is, no matter how much you try to treat them as individuals, the outside world treats them as a set.  I want Baby B's blanket to be completely different from Baby A's.  Plus, there is too much knitting in the world to make the same thing twice, unless I REALLY love it.  Especially not for a blanket, which I have a horrible track record with finishing.  (Ask me about the twins' older brother's blanket! Sitting in a bag in my room, 75% finished!)  I have started and pulled out three different patterns for Baby B's blanket.  The last one I didn't like, but wasn't sure about it, so I put the started piece on a string, in the middle of a pattern repeat, and just stuck it in a drawer.  Fourth time is a charm?

A walk on the reservoir.

Sleepwalking.

I brought Charlotte to school for a physical therapy evaluation today.  It was, for my personality quirks, the worst kind of "appointment."  It stemmed from a brief and vague conversation with Charlotte's pre-school teacher, and I was terrified that I was going to show up, and someone would look at me with a why-on-earth-are-you-here face or a you-are-no-good-at-this-meeting-thing face.  Plus, the school secretary is not the warm and fuzzy person you would think an elementary school secretary should be.  She's cranky, and has just that tone of authority that freaks me out.  "Do they know you're coming?  What did they say?  Who are you meeting, exactly?"  It's like she can smell my fear, or anxiety, or whatever, and she has no patience for it. 

Anyway, after 5 very uncomfortable minutes of waiting and second-guessing myself, Miss K, the physical therapist, showed up and escorted Charlotte down the hall.  She tried to tell me delicately that the eval would go better if I wasn't there, which I had no problem with.  I wasn't expecting her to say, "So we'll see you in about an hour, then?"  I didn't know it would take so long, I was expecting to sit in the office and send emails from my phone for 15 minutes or so.  An hour is a weird amount of time - what to do with an hour free?

If I had a book in the car (I can't believe I didn't!) the answer would have been super-easy - get a cup of coffee and sit in a parking lot and read.  Since I didn't have a book, I had to weigh all the possibilities. Go to the post office to get a box for a long overdue package?  Go home and pack the box, and cross it all off my list in one morning?  Go home and grab a book and go through with plan A?  Go home and try and work for 40 minutes?

I had to wait a while at the dentist my last appointment.  She apologized for the wait, and I said to her, "I don't mind waiting, at all.  It's very relaxing to me.  There's not anything else I can or should be doing.  I'm just waiting for someone else to come and do their job, that's my only job, and I like it."  She complimented me on my zen.  I said something similar to my mother-in-law about getting to a movie early.  She was concerned that we would get to the movie so early that we'd be waiting for 15 minutes even before the previews.  I told her, "I don't care - I liked to get there early to get the seat I want, and then is it really the worst thing in the world to take advantage of 15 extra minutes of babysitting and just chat with my husband?"  She allowed that she could see how that would be nice.

There's so much that I love to do, that I don't have time for - either that I don't allow myself time for, that my poor time management doesn't allow for, or that I talk myself out of.  You would think that an extra hour would be a gift, but instead I nickel & dime it away.  A cup of coffee here, a run to the post office there, a couple pages of a book, and a couple paragraphs of a blog.  And in the back of my head, the whole time, there is that thought - "This hour had to come from somewhere, and you will have to make it up somehow."

the difference

The difference between me & Matt is that when he lies awake at night, he's thinking about precarious employment, rent, and other big picture, out-of-his-control worries.

I'm thinking about cleaning the tub.

And then I dream about whaling, Doctor Who, the end of Titanic, and fireworks, and the New York Mets.

I wake up thinking about precarious employment, rent, and big picture problems.

And then I clean the tub.

Green Monstah and other Monday Projects.

Weirdly, I have found myself interested in green smoothies lately.  I used this 
basic recipe I found on Pinterest, and adapted it.

This is how I usually make it:

* 1 frozen banana (peeled, cut into pieces, thrown into the freezer)
* 1 to 2 TBSP of peanut butter (1 would be healthier, but I'm not gonna lie, I usually use 2)
* 1/2 to 3/4 cup of greek yogurt, or small container of soy yogurt
* 1 cup of soy/almond/coconut milk
* 4 cups of baby spinach, or however much you can squeeze in the blender

Blend, blend, blend, blend.

I recently came into some maple syrup, from my friend's sugaring experiments, and went crazy making (yet another batch of) granola, and these maple oat scones from Smitten Kitchen.  I baked 4 of the scones today, and froze the rest, unbaked, so I can make a few at a time.  I was really happy at how well the maple flavor came through in the scones, even though there is just 1/4 cup of syrup in the whole batch.

Solo Schemes

Matt & Charlotte are out and about today, and going up to his parents' house to spend the night.  This leaves me 24 hours by myself to get work done.  Woo!  I'm taking a break in there to celebrate my sister's birthday with her, which means some cooking, also.  And vacuuming and bathroom cleaning, which, frankly, had to happen this weekend anyway.  Here are my plans:

* Bake a cake from scratch. Use store-bought frosting.

* Make that miso dressing we all love.

* Marinate chicken tenders & cook them.

* Assemble some quick asian pickles.

* Make some tofu & chicken banh mi style sandwiches.

* Make some assorted spring rolls.

Then work, work, work.  If I get enough work done, I plan on breaking out the sewing machine and refashioning some old, unflattering dresses into some summer tops.