Ice and Snow

are on their way. Looks like we will be getting our first big winter blast this year. The snow would be fine, except there is supposed to be freezing rain with it, so basically it will be awful trying to drive on and go anywhere. I'm hoping to get everything done at work today so I can hole up in the house with the kids tomorrow. Yarn, here I come!

See My New Header?

Isn't it great?!??! As if Sharnee of suckmylolly were not cool enough with her awesome free blogger templates, she offered to customize my header. This girl rocks. She even gave me a choice of fonts, how cool is that?!?

Thank you, thank you, thank you Sharnee, I love it!

If you haven't been to Suck My Lolly yet, you NEED to go. Sharnee rocks.

ow ow ow ow ow!

So I've been crocheting away, wheeeeeeee. Really enjoying myself. And then last night while at work I dropped something really heavy. On the first two fingers of my right hand. It hurt a whole lot and still does. My knuckles are both swollen.

Crocheting is not as fun and I keep having to take breaks. Sigh.

Like My New Look?

Isn't it great? The fabulous Box of Rain linked to this really great fabulous awesome free template site called Suck My Lolly. I am totally in love with her designs, she rocks!!!!

I'm still getting used to the smaller font size and it took me way too long to realize that the header is a graphic when I was trying to change *Insert Witty Blog Title Here* to Blue Crochet. Oh my. Hey, my html knowledge is rudimentary to begin with and it's been awhile-obviously for those of you reading my blog-since I've done anything with it.

Totally lazy day

except for some laundry and changing the cat litter. While not fun, that was all I did today. YAY!

Originally I was going to go into work, but I ended up being completely wiped out from all the fun of Thanksgiving yesterday so I decided to wait and rest today and go into work tomorrow. I'm glad I did, I am feeling much better and will hopefully have more energy tomorrow.

As I type, my 5 year old is curled up next to me rubbing his head on my arm because he is now a cat. If I want him to actually answer me I have to call him little boy, or he will just meow back. He is a pretty convincing kitty, he even lifts his leg to lick his knee like the cats clean their legs. This kid is too much sometimes, lol.

Thanksgiving day was really great, I loved it and we spent a lot of time with family and had a lot of fun, along with all of the VERY good food. Except I only had one roll, instead my usual 4-6 and I didn't get to eat any pie, because of my new diet. I also was very tired throughout the day, but not in as much pain as I have been so all in all a good day, healthwise.

(I had to make the kitty go lie down because he was becoming "Berocious" which means ferocious.)

I am also actually really crocheting again HOORAY! And knitting! I am crocheting some caps for a bunch of kids, I have 7 and probably a few extra to make, I have two done so far (aside from weaving in the ends.) I'm knitting a bag for myself which I'll felt and can take my time with. Little by little I am getting back into my yarn. It's no fun when you lose the yarn drive.

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving, or a great Thursday for those not in the U.S.

So there I go.

Today I woke up late, I'd worked a long day yesterday and par for the course was completely wiped out today. I drug myself up and spent much of the afternoon attempting to just get going, feel better, be okay, feel okay. Aleve, water, meds, stretching, coffee ZIP ZERO NADA! Unfortunately I needed to go back into work to finish some things that had to be done.

At this point my husband attempts to give me advice, a pep talk. He means well and I should not expect him to understand how absolutely frustrated and fed up I am with my limitations or how hard it is to just get through the day some days. He says I need to do little things to push myself. But he doesn't realize there are days where even the littlest things ARE pushing myself. We proceed to have one of those talk/argument/whatever sort of things where I cry because I am an emotional ninny, well not really a ninny, but I HATE the fact that I cry like I do, and he doesn't get the fact that I am a crier type of person and that I do not do this on purpose and can't control it or I wouldn't be crying in the first place. So, after a tiny bit of heated words (mainly from me) and talking and him not getting what I am saying and me getting what he is saying but not wanting to hear it we sort of each get our points across but I am still left with my situation and the fact that I have this illness which I have to deal with in all its varied and fun ways. I have spent the end of this conversation explaining to him that I push myself every single day and that some days brushing my teeth, going to the bathroom, walking around the house can be really exhausting and difficult and painful tasks. The good days those are easier but then getting through normal stuff, like work, laundry, etc. are tiring and often painful as well. Now, I am saying much of this for the first time out loud and of course crying and feeling angry, frustrated, and sad even more than I was before.

I have tried to not give in to self-pity, but this gets very difficult when taking a shower leaves me breathing heavy and exhausted and I still need to actually go do what I took the shower for in the first place.

I had promised the kids they could come to work with me, although they do end up being at work with me after school each day as their afterschool care and my job are in the same place, but I really wanted to follow through for them so they were coming. We FINALLY get out the door and off to work, where on the way we are stuck waiting for a long train. Eventually we get there and I'll spare you the details, suffice it to say that so many things went wrong or nuts or haywire it was just unreal. My frustration point was reached very quickly, things were even MORE difficult than usual and I had had ENOUGH.

I've found myself saying that a lot lately. This is enough. I've had enough. I'm done. I don't want this anymore. Bemoaning the bad, tired of everything being this fight, this effort, these normal activities becoming so ridiculously difficult. And then tonight all these even smaller things becoming difficult and I went okay. Okay God, I know I am stubborn. I know! But I get it. Thanks for the reminder.

Now if you are a non God person you are probably sighing or ready to stop reading, or all of those things even God people will do when normal things go a little God-talky. I was not a big talker of my faith. I do not like to push my faith on people, I don't feel the need to make other people believe like me (even if I would love for them to do so) I respect the fact that people have different beliefs, or non-beliefs. In the same way I want to be respected, I respect others. My writing this is not an attempt to bring you over to my Lutheran church and baptize you. This is just me, what I believe, and what I thought today. [/End disclaimer]

Life is rough, I have a lot of struggles right now, but there are always struggles. Some are small, like my stapler jamming up, and some are large, like my hands not working or my kidneys shutting down, but they are all struggles. And at this point I want to be glad I have those struggles because the alternative for me is to be dead. So bring on the struggles. And God help me to be at peace with my life and help me get through the rough times even if I need to vent or bitch about them. Get me through them and remind me of the good stuff and what I'd be missing if I weren't here to struggle through this.

Which podcast am I?

You're The Mep Report!

Hilarious but random, you captivate all of those who spend
time with you. While you think a fair bit of yourself, others seem to think
even more of you, though you personally find this baffling. Flightless birds
play a major role in your life, though no one can really figure out why. You
manage to pull everything together in the end despite your penchant for
discussing literally everything at once. You honestly believe you can save
the world with Tonka trucks.


Take the Podcast Quiz.

Coincidentally, the ostrich picture is one I used as an av for quite awhile. Who knew?

BlueKids!

Here they are, on the end of the first day of school. It was still raining, hence the picture quality.

The Absent Blogger returns...again

Here I am again, you'd have thought with all the time I've had to spend resting I should've been able to post a blog entry or too, but noooooo. Truthfully I could have taken the time, but my early days home were spent mostly sleeping or being with my family. One of my sisters also stayed for a month and helped me get my house in shape, and I got to spend lots of time with my little nephew man, who is growing bigger very quickly.

I did do some yarny things, made baby hats, started a bag for myself, and worked on some projects that have been and continue to be sorely neglected. I just can't seem to get back into the groove, it doesn't help that my hands have not wanted to work properly and are swollen a lot, but still! I miss working with my yarn. A ton. For my birthday I received a gift card for Hobby Lobby, ostensibly for pictures for my office, but I'm hoping to squeeze in a few skeins to make caps with. Those are always fun, easy, and useful.

I've got to get some pictures up to make this more colorful, it's sad how long it's been since I've posted any. I have one of the kids with my grandma and nephew I will try to get up here later, along with a first day of school pic that was actually taken at the end of the day because of a HUGE thunderstorm we had that morning. It's a hilarious pic of my four kids, I love it. They are all growing up so fast, my baby is now 5 and quickly losing any of those baby reminders, like his chubby little hands. My older son is 7 and very much a boy, complete with skinny legs and knobby knees. My daughters are now 8 and very much girls, no longer little. It's so cliched but it really is true that they grow up way too fast. Unfortunately no amount of hugging and holding onto them keeps that from happening.

I hope, if there are any readers left, that you are all well. If you haven't yet, check out Venus' blog for her very cool sock creatures and see what she did with a pincushion, it cracks me up and I want one too. Even though I rarely sew.