Actually I’m really surprised by the whole actually having finished a month of doing it.  And proud of myself. I haven’t seen any real changes in my body, but I notice things. I have more energy, I am not so out of breath when going up stairs and thats what I am aiming for so I am pleased with how things are going. I am also getting used to the satisfaction I feel when I’m walking out of the building, body sore but good. It’s weird though to turn on the a/c in my car in december but I am often so overheated it seems necessary.

But beyond the smug self satisfaction I am feeling regarding my diligence in working out, things are plugging along here..Finals are next week and I am tired already from all the studying. But I slog on, though I am taking a break for tonight because otherwise I might just eat a book and those things are dreadfully expensive.

The party is being planned enough and tomorrow I will begin to clean the house for it. I have begun to decorate, the tree is up, the windows are covered with stickers, the door has a long white hanging and a wreath and sometime soon there will be lovely colored icicles hanging off of the gutter so that we light up the street along with the other houses. I love having children when christmas comes along, Hunter is over the moon with excitement and has spent the past two days practically climbing up the wall. We’ve broken two balls, one a worthless bit, the other..hand blow glass I’ve had for nearly ten years. I am really sad about the latter.

It has taken me like three days to finish this thing.

This studying for finals thing is kicking my ass. I have actual chips on the ground crunched up into the carpet from my attempts today to keep TT the second off of my homework. I only say this because once I am done and hit the publish button I will go vacuum, so you can’t have big judgy thoughts about me but it is a fact that right now there is food ground into my carpet so that I might study in peace.

It’s not totally all lord of the flies around here. We’ve gotten hot food on the table, baths have been issued, laundry done (though it lingers in baskets waiting to be folded and put away in all honesty) but I am just crazy overwhelmed with notes and chapters and this and that. So if I go quiet next week, you’ll know why.

Right now though? I have to start a roast..and get the carpet vacuumed and then go back to texas legislature and how it is awesome!!! AWESOME.

Right. At least there will be mashed potatoes.

Now it’s not a really -big- hurt, just my back was already sore and while I promised myself that I was going to take it easy and I did by not pushing myself past boundaries I had already established myself last time I worked out, I had to laugh as I stretched out and felt twinges. A year ago? if I had a twinge it would have been ‘OH my god! Pass me a bonbon this is serious!’  Now one short month into this program I’m telling myself ‘It will be better if you work out. Might even make it feel better.’ For the record it didn’t. I’m still sore and tender, but it’s not worse and I popped some advil to make it go away anyways.

I also managed to figure out what is going on for dinner, do some laundry, take care of the littlest TT (Monkey edition for your refrences) and laze about playing Farmville nearly obsessively (I am so going to make a freaking villa mine. You hear me? Mine! muwahahahaha). Next week is finals week and so far I’m non plussed. I know I should be all a twitter but frankly I’ll start wigging out somewhere around Wensday. Though I plan on doing some early wigging out regarding Art Appreciation tonight. The normal ‘write down the pictures names 15 times in a row compulsively’ thing that I did last time. It served me well and I’m loathe to let it go.

I then will have to figure out what I’m doing beyond the normal study thing for Pysch and there’s some sort of test in English that I can not even fathom what he is going to do (to say this man has a deep and abiding love for youtube is an understatement) and of course there is the whole petrification of what my Government teacher is going to do. But I think I have her figured out this time.

I will just do each thing as I come onto it. See where it gets me.

Beyond school and pushing myself at the gym, tomorrow I am going to begin needling poor Loren into hiking up the Christmas stuff, not only because I am a sucker for christmas stuff (and I can not believe that I haven’t gotten Christmas songs playing right now) but because even Hunter is crawling up the walls about getting the christmas things out. I think it’s mostly because he can’t wait until he has toys and Santa and all that but still this is one of the reasons I had children, was to have someone who is excited about the christmas season. Maybe this year, when I am on break I will finally make my grandmother’s gingerbread cookies.  It hurt too much last year after loosing her, plus having the baby, but I want my kids to have the memories that I have of those cookies and the sense of tradition that I had with them.

Maybe I’ll finally do the lemon bars and all from my mom as well. It’s actually the one thing that I remember the most from her and I will be off of school for a whole month. I know from experience that I will be gnawing at the walls by the end of the first week. I have too much motivation lately, which I am not complaining about but yeah, I think giving myself cookies to bake and a ‘christmas experience’ to make might make me ok until after the first of the year. Then it’ll be WoW and knitting until I’m in classes once again.

Maybe I’ll try going to the gym 4-5 times a week that month, to make up for the whole cookie making feasting that will go on. I am considering making alfredo and lasagna for the kids party..I have to work that off somehow.

Alright my pretties. I am off to go get Dinner started and work on my art appreciation stuff.

May you all have enough motivation in life.

I’ve been home since Friday afternoon, but frankly after being in the car for four hours with the boys I was not up for much besides reacquainting our family with ‘The Hut’ as it is now known and getting us unpacked and the house nice and clean. Then yesterday was still working on the house and then the gym since I missed it on friday and finally I was felled by a migraine that left me whimpering and not “walking too hard” because some how..my heel hitting the ground was painful to the top of my head.

I popped enough advil and tylenol to perhaps damage an organ and made myself eat and crawled into bed.

So! now that you’ve had my woes and excuses, beyond that the holidays were fine. The trip down was a little more than I expected but then again I am a fool and forget that -everyone- wants to go somewhere on the day before thanksgiving. We had a lovely time with the family, the food was good and I am sure everyone is glad to be home.

Now I am staring down the barrel of Finals week, getting ready for the Christmas Rush and of course, Gabe’s Birthday. I’m holding that party on the 13th which somehow I’ve deemed to be far enough away from Christmas as to not be ridiculous and yet close enough to his birthday (three days fyi) that we can be all cool. Of course this party is more for us than him, he won’t care/know what is going on. But I would like for all of us to get together and have some fun and relax after finals. I plan on doing Pioneer woman’s lasagna and perhaps her alfredo, I was thinking of doing some shrimp as well, burgers, and hotdogs and of course the chips and all that.

I am at least going to provide a decent spread for those who are brave enough to come out and do a kids party. Which will basically be the kid getting loud noisy toys and us standing around and eating. Good times.

I am surprisingly not all that worried about my finals. I mean I’m going through the regular level of nervousness and determination, but since so far none of my finals are going to be comprehensive it shouldn’t be any harder than the exams I’ve already had. So I’ll be up to my nose in studying for a lot of exams but I am fairly confident if I do my normal over done over blown study routine and I will do alright.

This week of course will be finals review in classes and all that. I have a presentation to do for english but that should be easy and on tuesday I am hoping that Lissa and I can go to see the Pioneer Woman when she comes to town. And of course the cleaning and rearranging for the party and putting up christmas decorations. Should be enough to keep me insane!

I am also going to try to get some pictures of the knitting I’ve been doing and get them updated on revelry and here. So yeah, lets see how much actually gets accomplished and how little I manage to do. I always do this, make huge huge plans and never have any ability to get them taken care of. I have my priorities though and will focus on them.

Right now, I’m going to go change a butt and finish watching Night at the Museum 2  Have a good day!

Right now I should be going through my Drama Essay which is already written, and hand writing out the pysch notes concerning abnormal syndromes. I am however, not, I am doing the ridiculous thing that I barely dare admit to…playing in facebook. I am addicted to Farmville thanks to my family and friends and I have made the entire house addicted to it as well.

So yes, instead of being a true over achiever and immediately coming home from a Gov exam and an Art Appreciation presentation (including art project, power point presentation and paper) I am letting some of my brains leak out of my ears and planting blueberries. Oh and writing in here. Because I meant to do it yesterday however, that whole paper-project- presentation-test combo plus working out was a huge kick to the shins and I never managed to pull myself out of the reason for a two party system in texas.

I did go and work out, upper body and treadmill again, marking the third week I’ve drug my happy but there,slapped on some earphones and some harry potter, and promised myself it’ll all be worth it as I make myself sweat and hurt. I am disheartened, as most lazy people who are forcing themselves into activity at the lack of instantaneous results. But I am also exposing myself to the pride element in talking about it publicly and then backing my butt into a corner so that I am forced to do it. I am also getting better about making healthier choices with food, switched entirely to diet soda and am eating more and more salads (though yes I allow cheese on them..come on people I can’t give everything up all at once) and even today I had a diet soda, grilled chicken breast and salad for lunch. So I am not just working out and hoping for the best. I’m taking my vitamins every day, starting to move my tush and taking care in the choices I make about what I put into my body.  It’s time I grow up and start making myself feel good and healthy and not just waiting for magic to happen.

However, I did say that I would talk about knitting this entry and I had planned on having some pictures to show you all. That was not how it worked out. I don’t have pictures, so You’ll just have to wait. I did finish the beach socks ’09, and am now working on the second of a pair in Tosh’s Aegean. I finished another Noro scarf which you will not get to see because I used it as an art project and I forgot to take a picture before giving it to the Art teacher who was thrilled to have it.  I am getting more and more done on the blanket and while it is slow progress now that I’ve gone from the lovely little small blocks to bigger splashes of color it is still being worked on.

So lets see, socks, scarf, blanket, socks…thats about it. I did get my final shipment of yarn from the Three Irish Girls and those are the next project I’m chomping at the bit to cast on. I’m thinking of taking a bit of it down to start  for more socks with my step mother.  But we’ll see how it all goes. I really do have to do more things than scarves, socks, blankets, hats and the like. I think I’m going to try some of the little fingerless gloves that Lissa has been churning out soon.

I do want to do that lace shawl that I picked out a while back. The knitting is spinning out and I’m starting to get good at actually finishing projects which considering the amount of yarn that is sitting in my closet is a great thing.

Well I can no longer avoid the work looming ahead of me. I will try to update before friday  but it might not happen. Either way all the Americans who might stumble past this have a happy thanksgiving.

I am also completely done with apologizing for it. First of all I don’t deign to think that y’all give much of a shit one way or the other, but for the most part I keep apologizing feeling guilty and not writing. So screw it. I suck at being consistent at blogging and y’all are just gonna have to love me regardless. Or not, you know whichever you feel like is appropriate.

In the time since I last wrote, nothing major has happened. I started a new semester at school and have been busting ass to maintain a 4.0 gpa so I can go plunder the grants and scholarship world (memo to self, plunder grants and scholarship world)  and been dealing with kiddos and trips across the country and ect ect.  In fact next week I will be hauling my plump self down to Austin with the boys so that we can enjoy the hospitality of my step sister and her family and spend time with my Dad and Pat. 3-4 hours in the car with the dynamic duo should be -awesome-. You all are just jealous.

Speaking of the Dynamic duo I should give an update. The original TT (which I think I should call the original OGTT from now on, what? no?) Is in kindergarten (how the hell did that happen btw? wasn’t he 2 yesterday?) and is now finally excelling. Not that he wasn’t doing great before, he was just doing great at the things -he- wanted to do and not so much the things that you know other people wanted him to do. Like literally telling his teacher ‘No!” when she would give him instruction. That sort of fun thing. You see now why he is the Tiny Tyrant right?  However a few weeks in baby bootcamp in which his room was stripped down to nothing but a bed a table and a lamp and he was forced to spend a majority of his time in the bare room thinking about the fact that the show must go on and he must listen to his teacher has done wonders. He now is getting a good number of good marks and we’re moving forward steadily.

Except for the at home stuff in which the thought that I could potentially dangle him off the roof edge for a few hours routinely occurs. We’re still working on that stuff.

The newest TT (Tiny Terrorist) is now walking. Yes, you read that right, he is walking. He started to do that about a month ago which would make him a walker at 10 months like his brother. I am just as thrilled about that as I was when the OGTT did it. Hence why he is the Tiny Terrorist. Because he circles the room like a tiny tiger shark looking for something to destroy and get into. His preference is electronics, he’s already sent my laptop into the repair for a month because he disconnected the power plug from the motherboard (as well as some USB ports). He’s a genius really at destroying things. I am forseeing a great career in demolitions. Perhaps something involving C-4.  Only if there’s an electronic involved. He also is intent on the kitties who are just as intent on getting away from him and frankly are fairly close to performing a guerrilla attack on him. As well as all that fun stuff? he’s into his newest phase of ‘no one gets to touch me but those who live in my house’ which makes babysitting an..interesting. And something that does not happen often.

I have also taken to working out and even drinking diet soda and trying to avoid things with cheese and that have had an intimate encounter with a deep fryer. This is harder than you would expect and doing it right before the holiday season seems to be just asking for failure but I’ve promised myself that if I fall from the path of righteousness that I will not think of it, so long as I go to work out 3-4 times a week and continue to try to make better choices. I am really not doing this solely to loose weight though I won’t argue with it..I’m doing it because I am tired of being tired, I am tired of hiking all over campus and feeling fat and out of shape. I’m also trying out the theory that people who work out are smarter and keep their smarts longer. I’m thinking about Grad school people and I need all the help I can get to get into it and to get the money and funding to do it.

The long suffering and often not mention Husband is doing alright, he had a gallbladder surgery this past september which had some mild complications but healed well and he is starting to do the work out thing with me as well.

So that is where we are now. I am studiously avoiding two pages that I should be writing now and a government test next week that I should be studying for and trying to make this work again since I got a snark from Lissa about it last night. Here we go.  I am going to make this like my workouts. If I do it 3-4 times a week all good, any more is gravy.

Next time? I show pictures of -knitting-. You are forewarned

So I sit in my new leather armchair in the living room, my feet up in the recline position, my laptop across my legs and ontop of that is my choc-qua blanket. Outside a lovely steady rain falls, and on the tv plays Countdown not with Keith Olbermann. I am reading Yarnharlot archives, and a site about customers who are insane, and I knit.

I have been quiet again, I tend to do that and I know it and try not to but I can’t help it. This time I have knit. The blanket is growing under my fingers, each stitch layering on the last and each color playing with the surrounding ones. I knit and I think. My family is surrounded by pain and fear lately. I am heading out in a few weeks to go back east to..I don’t know begin a process. I hope it will be a good one with a good ending, but at the same time I fear that it will not be. I fear that I will be going back more and more to watch someone I love disappear slowly over time. But not slowly enough. Never slowly enough.

My step mother is very sick. I want to write more but it is a combination of making it real by writing it down, and giving information that is not mine that stops me. It is enough to say…that she is very sick and the outlook is scary right now. My family is still nursing the wounds of loosing my grandmother. Every day I think about her, every day I wish I could call her and talk to her. My father has not even gone a year without her and now he is facing this..alone.

I miss my Grandmother so much in this moment it is breath taking.

So I knit. I work on the blanket, I plan another. I work on the socks, I plan more. I knit and I take care of the children. I think, I plan for vacation. I knit.

I will try to write more, but I can not make promises.

However, here is what I knit.

The progress of the blanket

Even if we are not going to the beach, the socks are here.

Look who's sitting up!

Time seems preciously short and I feel frazzled and overworked. Like dough loosing it’s elasticity I just am tired and run down and my throat feels tight and raw like a cold is trying to take advantage of my relaxed moment and get it is fingers/feet in the door.

Wow this all sounds incredibly whiny and it is incredibly whiny but god damnit I am feeling particularly flattened and need a little whine time.

I have also done the gratifying thing and knit. Miles and miles of garter stitch, the yarn slipping through my fingers, the needles clicking pleasantly and a blanket is being churned out. I know more wool blankets in the middle of july in texas. Sounds crazy to me as well. But I am happy to do it and as my hands work, as chocolate is replaced with a brillant teal and a new block is made, I feel a little childish blurble of happiness. This makes me happy.

I saw on Mason Dixon a Log cabin blanket made of noro and it was like a bolt of lightening applied to my ass. I can use some of my gorgeous yarn to make -blankets-. Not just scarves! I have one in my head already and am eager to begin it. Blankets and blankets and more and more blankets. I will never use all of them but the thought of them pleases me. Big blankets that will be handed down maybe, or perhaps given to loved ones.

Annnnd as I was writing this Hunter started to get sick. I knew something was off with him, he’s been a monster lately but frankly today he was working for ‘evilest nearly five year old ever to exist’. I have tucked him into bed with the fan on him, a bucket near by, and Garfield a tale of two kitties merrily chattering away at him on the screen.  Gabe took the moment to sense my stress levels achieving epic perportions and kindly shuffled off for a nap as well. Or at least I am going to assume it is a  nap because to assume that it is a blessed early bed time for me would be only something that would be heartbreaking should he awaken in an hour or so.

As it is now I shall see this as a kind gift, and if it is an early bedtime for my feverish teething little buckaroo I will see that as an even kinder offering.

I will take this reprieve from chasing the infant who wants to chew on any electrical cord he can find, and seems to ferret out lighters I hadn’t even realized we -had- in the house (either he is importing them in or I was squirreling them away in some sort of odd lighter shortage fear) and the five year old who is channeling his inner 15 year old and go and knit. I hope tomorrow I will have some more reserves left.

But my nemisis the stomach who shall not be named (I’m looking at you Midsection) is acting up something fierce and I am going to toot off with some pain meds and play WoW.

So instead of all that? I will leave you with a few pitctures.

Here's a good pic of the baby's black eye and the illustration that HE IS OFFICIALLY CRAWLING NOW PEOPLE.

Choc-qua blanket update 1. The one where you realize I haven't finished the first block.

However, even though I had a lovely afternoon with her and have a hoop sitting in my living room that is telling me to practice so I can you know, even keep it -up- for more than ten seconds (yes I have fallen for the hooping spell, I want to loose weight people), and I should be mentioning about how it wasn’t really a shiner after all but the start of a sinus or eye infection in the baby..I am going to do something that I think I shall repeat every sunday, to start including a bit of the politics I have mentioned in this blog.

So here are the issues that have been on my mind this week.

The potential appointee for the state board of education in Texas

This should be an obvious reason of why it’s on my mind. This woman is and I say this with unvarnished honesty and intent..a fucking nutjob. She believes public education to be unconstitutional, is concerned that Obama will be setting martial law any moment thinks that the government should be run with a ‘God Litmus test’ and my Governor  the very one who thinks that Texas needs to..or maybe should succeed from the union is thinking of appointing her to the head of the state board of education. I can not -tell- you how much as a parent that this woman scares the hell out of me. I am seriously considering moving from here if she gets the job. Hell with the political atmosphere that is running through my state now (her supporters call us ‘the pagan left’) I don’t care if there is some validity of her arguements to the constitutionalism of public education her being appointed to that position constitutes a conflict of interest and she should be publicly standing up and sayin that she should not be considered nor would she accept.

Because that would be the honest and honorable thing to do. She could work on legislation to get it abolished, she could lead a movement to take it down but to be appointed to it’s -head-? Completely unethical. And scary. Lord is it ever -scary-.

The Attorney General talking about prosecuting the Bush Administration

This is my biggest issue with the Obama Administration. The fact that he spoke of accountability and transperency and has back slid on all of it. I don’t get the ‘I don’t want to look back’ mentality. I think that this man broke the law, betrayed the american people and our consititution and the people and him should be held accountable. I think for us to redeem ourselves for any of the things that has occured under our watch in the past 8 years we -have- to do this. So that people see that we are not ignoring it and we are not condoning it. Please prosecute them! I completely support any effort to bring real consequence for crimes to our political arena. It’s high time that we are not the only ones held accountable to the law!

Michael Moore had it right in Sicko

A high ranking member of CIGNA says that they made a costly and concentrated effort to disabuse the truth that was potrayed in the movie Sicko, that the health care in other countries that is run by the government is working and well handled.

“We shouldn’t fear government involvement in our health care system. There is an appropriate role for government, and it’s been proven in the countries that were in that movie.”

He admitts that the insurance companies put profit infront of people and that investors look at actual health care as a ‘medical loss ratio’ and reward lack of ‘medical loss ratio’ and find any growth as in any actual -health care for insured patients- as ridiculous and unwanted. People this is the freaking reason why we -need- regulation and governmental intervention in health care. Preforming -actual health care- on paitents shouldn’t be a detriment to the system! It is the purpose and it is absolutely -neccessary-. Because what happens if the investors see a raise in medical loss ratio? they demand it is lowered and -you don’t get health care- because of that. That? is ridiculous. Not the fact that sick people get help..the fact that some investors believe that sick people getting help cuts their bottom line.

I can not expound on how much the mentality involved in that situation. It is disgusting and absolutely something that I am passionate about seeing change in.

Alright I think that’s enough soap boxing for one morning. I think I shall go make some coffee and a bowl of rice chex and watch some Rachel Maddow and knit. Maybe then I’ll calm down. I doubt it though.