I love coming across evidence of knitters in the wild…

Gentle reader (I think there was only one of you… and you may not even be there anymore…), since we last spoke I have taken up knitting and crochet (I am fickle and alternate between the two), and man, what a difference it makes to my massive lack of anything resembling patience.  Doctor’s office overbooked and an hour behind? No problem, I can finish this hat!  Six hours in the waiting room while my mother-in-law gets surgery? Hey, look, I finished a scarf!  The only time I get really antsy now is when I finish a project and *gasp* have nothing left to work on (oh, the humanity!).  I tell you, it’s been a lifesaver.  It makes me feel like even my downtime is productive, which means I don’t have the crushing guilt associated with sitting down for 5 minutes to take a break (don’t get me wrong, I slacked off plenty before, but the guilt was ever-present).  The only thing I haven’t figured out is how to incorporate it into my exercise routine (ha! that so makes it sound like I have an exercise routine!) – yarn and ellipticals really don’t mix…

At any rate, I really, really will try to dust off my rusty writing skills and make an effort to post more regularly for all of you (I crack myself up) who have been anxiously awaiting news of the wonder that is my everyday life. HA.

Um.

Uhhhh.

[insert awkward silence and foot-shuffling here]

My life is so much more interesting to live than to read about.  Well, ok, maybe not.  Maybe neither.  HOWEVER, looking back over past posts, I will say that I am about halfway to my weight-loss goal that will ultimately be rewarded by a vacation to Ireland and Colorado. YES!  And that about catches you up on my past two years.  Ha.  Other than sisterly drama which I mustn’t blog about in the interests of confidentiality and not wanting to ruin your day, gentle reader.

My writing skills have atrophied.  I’ll return when I remember what I was going to say.

I’m pretty sure he also promised to take me to Ireland. Yeah. Yup. Pretty sure. I’m lobbying for both. Colorado resort in winter, Ireland in spring or fall.

Will this give me the incentive I need to never eat again? Maybe I should print pics and staple them to the fridge… and pantry… and the door of my favorite bakery…

I mean, look at that place!!!!! GORGEOUS!!!!! And in between sitting in majestic mountain-lodge splendour, you can even go dogsledding (although I would be all about the snowboarding – once I lose the weight, that is…)

Exercise, here I come!

For those of you who do not have the hyper-Googling thing going on (bythelbs read about the song in the post, looked it up, and found it before I even had a chance to locate the thing online yesterday!), the song I was referring to is here.  I have no idea if I’d find it so compelling had I not seen dance choreographed to it.

Anyway, another bit of randomness pulled from an e-mail yesterday:

Btw, did you know that spell-check recognizes “Wal-Mart”?  I had taken the lazy route and just typed “Walmart”… I usually don’t bother spell-checking, but “guttural” looked weird so I ran it, and what did it pick up on?  “Dustbunnies” (it prefers “dust bunnies”) and “Walmart.”  Yeesh. 

What has our society come to?  Spell-check has an entry for Wal-Mart.  And no, this is not one of those where I added the word – I never (ok, well, this one time) use spell-check, much less add words to it.  I should add that just for giggles and grins I ran Xanga’s spell-check on this post, and it does not recognize “Wal-Mart” (nor, apparently, “I’d” or “spell-check,” ironically enough).  It also does not recognize or offer alternatives for “dustbunny.”  I just thought you’d want to know.

I was emailing a random side note to a friend and thought, “Hey, this is as good a blog as anything I’ve managed to not write lately…”  Plus, this kind of eases me back in gently, without the pressure of blog-specific creativity.   

Ok, so I’m fixated on a new song.  I must confess, I actually heard it on “So You Think You Can Dance” and I spent like half an hour trying to figure out what it was and who sang it.  (Side note: This is the first season of SYTYCD that we’ve watched, and I must say it’s fascinating.  The judges are irritating and the people’s personalities sometimes less than riveting, but the dancing is amazing.)  Anyway, the song is “Belief (Stripped Version)” by Gavin Degraw.  Oh.  My.  Gosh.  It’s not a Christian song or anything, but the guy packs some incredible raw emotion into his voice.  I listened to the original released version (I bought the whole “Chariot – Stripped” album on the basis of this one song, and it comes with all the originally-produced versions PLUS all the stripped versions) and it was just sappy and pointless, but the stripped version… Oh, wow.  Not that I do that sort of thing or anything, but it’s one of those songs that would totally make you want to jump the guy.

Have you heard it?  If not, I bet you want to now, don’t you?  Muahahahahaha.

Anyway.  Just to give you guys an update: We’ve been in the process of adding a garage and bonus room to our house – a project that was supposed to take two to three months and is now going on five.  The problems it solves are well worth it (I keep reminding myself), but honestly – I.  Cannot.  Handle.  Much.  More.  Of.  This.  Grad school + work (tax season, to boot) + chaos and construction at home = stress. 

The good news is, once this is complete it will solve virtually all of our minor issues with the house – we really like our house (I built it about four years ago, just before TBear and I got engaged), but it’s fairly small.  Don’t get me wrong – it’s a great starter house and was ideal for a single gal, but if/when we ever decide to have kids things would get cramped.  We considered buying land so we could eventually build something bigger, but we really like living here – so this addition is adding a nice big garage (storage!! room for TBear’s man-stuff!) and a nice big new living room so that TBear’s big TV has a lovely nice home where it won’t look like a 2-ton elephant squeezed into a child’s playhouse…  AND I won’t be running into speakers all the time AND the fireplace will be noticeable again AND no more scraping ice off windshields in the winter AND the washer and dryer will be moving to the garage so I get a PANTRY IN THE HOUSE!!!!!  YAY FOR STORAGE!!!!  Plus we were able to get the living room, dining room, and spare bedroom painted as part of the reno and the colors are gorgeous (previously everything was kind of an ugly yellow, due to an incorrect color-match by person or persons unknown when the house was originally built/painted).  HUZZAH!  PLUS, now we will have a nice back porch (previously pretty much just an oversized landing) and a back deck!  And did I mention we now have a real, honest-to-goodness concrete walkway instead of a narrow little DIY deal (that was painfully obviously inexpertly done by yours truly)?

So, while things have been crazy-hectic, at least the end is in sight and glorious wonderfulness awaits (LOL – kind of like life…)

So here are a couple of before/after pics (reno isn’t done but most of the exterior stuff is):

House before.

House after.

Ugly paint before (hard to see color – just trust me on this one) (Oh, and btw – the TV takes up the entire corner between the window and fireplace)

Pretty paint after (the fireplace wall is an accent wall, so the color on it is a bit darker, then everything else is more of a putty color).

HOORAY HOORAY!