Fog

It’s been cold and foggy in my part of the world. I think I’m the only person I know who actually likes fog – I love the soft blanket of grey in the sky, the way the light looks when it filters through our blinds, the cozy feeling I get imagining that I could spend a day curled up in a quilt, doing my knitting and drinking hot chocolate and listening to a Val McDermid mystery before slowly and lovingly creating a pot of soup. The reality is, of course, that I spend my foggy days working in my cubical, trying to find passion for pushing papers and answering phone calls before going home and heating up leftovers for dinner.

But still, the fog calls to me in a way that sunlight never does. I never get depressed by Winter (possibly because it’s so short here!). Instead, I dread the month of August when one sticky, hot, miserable day follows another and the sun is so bright that even sunglasses don’t cut the glare.

But those days are a long way off, and until then, I will bask in a world of soft greys and whites and think cozy thoughts.

New Year's Resolutions

It seems a bit ridiculous to post real New Year’s Resolutions when I have the big giant list of things to do. So, instead, I’ll be posting monthly goals that will directly relate to items on my life list.

January Goals:

- get to week 2 of C25k (#1)
- write two blog posts per week; post four pictures (#2)
- work on anti fundamentalist story 2x/week for 15 mins (#6)
- get feedback from boss re: performance review and salary review(#7 and #8)
- update resume regardless of outcome of perf review (#7 and #8)
- start looking at Craigslist etc for new job? (#7 and #8)
- in Jan, buy 1-2 more bras; continue to hand wash them weekly (#9 and #51)
- come up with family budget with Dave (#10 and #13)
- try opening Champagne at least once (#26)
- do yoga on off days from C25k (#30)
- Knitting/Craft Stuff (#38) – the goal this month is to finish a lot of the almost-done projects that are hanging around. Hopefully, I’ll take some pictures of them and post those, but with the short days, it’s hard to find time to photograph them in daylight. I’ve discovered through trial-and-error that I take seriously crappy pictures in artificial light. There’s probably something I can do about that, but it would involved reading the camera manual and fiddling with buttons and knobs. And, uh, that scares me. Anyway:
-blue beret with sock yarn
-scarf with blue sock yarn
-finish brown/blue blanket
-finish crochet blanket
-finish birds
-finish embroidery project
-finish reading Maggie Righetti’s book
- Books/Science - read Female Chauvist Pigs
- work on filing project 15 mins/ day, 5x week
- type recipes 15 mins/day, 6x week

Random New Year's Resolutions

1. Do not purchase any new lotion/soap/perfume until I’ve used what I have
2. Do not purchase any new candles until I’ve used what I have.

Notice a pattern???

Christmas 2010

Christmas…

Was wonderful! Not quite as relaxing as I would have liked, but still really nice. Our family outdid themselves with wonderful presents, and I feel a bit guilty about that. Everyone got wedding pictures from us, so that was easy, but it felt a bit self-serving. Oh well, the family seemed to like them anyway!

The socks were finished a good hour before their recipient arrived. All the cooking we did turned out splendidly – Julia Child’s beef bourguignon for Christmas Eve, cranberry coffee cake for Christmas morning, mince pie as our contribution to the family Christmas Dinner (pictured above). Bing Crosby playing in the car as we made the rounds of the family. All was cozy and bright.

I’m glad the hustle and bustle of Christmas is over, but I can understand why some people celebrate 12 days of Christmas. I could do with a bit more merry-making – well, as long as someone else could do the cooking! Fortunately, my sister gets married on Saturday, so more festivity is just around the corner.

Performance Review

Today I did something that, for me, was incredibly bold, scary, and risk-taking. I not only asked my boss for a raise, I also suggested that a new position be created in our department AND I suggested that I be the one to fill said position.

Now, if you knew me, you would know how huge this is. I’m not assertive or demanding at all, ever. I hate rocking the boat.

But at the same time, I am feeling burned out and bored at my current job. My pay is ten cents an hour above the very bottom of the range for my position. I’ve been doing the same thing for five and half years, so clearly, something had to change.

The new position I suggested would be an asset to our company and our department and our employees. I’m already doing parts of it, anyway, and there is much that needs to be improved, just no time to work the improvements since I’m also busy with other stuff. So this would be really, really huge.

But it’s also really, really scary. What if they create this new position and I’m a total failure? What if there really isn’t enough to keep me busy? What if I hate it? What if they create the job and give it to someone else? And on and on.

Regardless of what happens, I’m glad I asked. I might get a raise out of it, and holy cow, how awesome would that be??? I might get a completely new position– who knows? And also, nothing might happen. I’m okay with that to. I decided that I needed to start asking for what I want, because if I don’t, I’ll never get anything. Part of the reason that women are still paid 70something cents for every dollar paid to a man is that we don’t ask for more. So, I asked.

And boy does it ever feel good!!

(yes, I’m still plugging away on the sock. Only five more inches to go!)

The Sock

My plan of paring down my to do list to one or two items per day hasn’t really panned out. There’s the small matter of Christmas coming up, which, despite my best intentions, is still a bit stressful in the present-making department. When will I learn to start Christmas gifts in July, not Thanksgiving weekend?? Also, the week after Christmas we’re traveling for a family wedding in which I am the honor person (I’m not old enough to be “matron of honor”, dammit!). So, needless to say, my must-do list is huge.

Around thanksgiving time, I decided it would be great to make my dad a pair of socks for Christmas. The first sock was completed two weeks ago. The second sock? Well, I discovered that thinking about knitting doesn’t correspond to an actual finished knitted product. The sock sat there, mocking me with its measely 2” of ribbing – for a week!

I decided that, no matter what, that sock is getting finished. Life has now narrowed to two things: work, and knitting. I knit when I eat my breakfast. I knit at lunchtime. I drink caffeine in the afternoon, just for the express purpose of staying awake long enough at night to crank out more knitting.

And you know what? It’s working! The sock is (as of this morning) at 5 3/4 inches! Only 16 more inches to go.

Oh, and just a warning to other sock knitters out there: men’s socks take WAY, WAY more time than women’s socks. And they’re boring, because let’s face it, most men don’t want fancy cables or lace on their socks. So men’s socks are inches and inches of plain ribbing, in a boring color…for EVER. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Christmas!

(ooh, look - a picture! One of our adorable vintage bird ornaments)

Even though I try really hard to simplify Christmas as much as possible, and even though I started my Christmas shopping well before Thanksgiving, I’m still finding myself with a mile-long list of projects to complete in the next two weeks. Some of those projects have sapped all of my creative juices, so I haven’t had much energy left to blog. Heck, I haven’t had much energy, period. In fact, I was so tired last night that I sat down to knit at 8pm and promptly started drifting off with needles still in hand. Since I haven’t figured out a way to knit in my sleep, I figured giving into the sleepies would be better than charging forward and making mistakes. So, I was asleep by 8:30 last night and it felt wonderful. My to do list, however, is not so wonderful, since I *have* figured out how to add to that while sleeping.

Sigh. Merry Christmas, though, to those who celebrate it. And Happy Everything to everyone else.
(As a side note, you don't even want to know how long it took me to get the picture above. We're talking days, people. Days. So embarrassing!)