So, I went bowling tonight and I'm not quite sure that I know what the purpose of a bowling ball is. You would think by looking at me that I have never seen a bowling ball, never mind actually using it! Sucky McGoo is all I can say. And being that tonight was the championship night, you would assume that I would be at the top of my game and play well. Um,.....that would be no. But at least I had a good time and the prize money was enough for me to pay for my spinning class that I have tomorrow with Peggy Church.

My friend Linda and I are going to spin. I've never done it before, but since I am addicted to yarn, this seems like the next logical progression. I'm very excited about it. I'm not sure I'll be successful, but excited none the less.

The shop is now chock full of beautiful new yarn! And of course, I can say chock full and you think...."oh, new yarn". I mean CHOCK FULL. We were all sitting at the table, sorting the gazillion patterns that Sandee has acquired, and then all of a sudden the UPS truck literally backs up right to the door (we thought he was going to run into the shop, he was so close), and boxes upon boxes just came out. We weren't sure they would all fit.

We all just went to work. What else could we do? SO MUCH YARN, and because there was so much I don't even think that I was able to process just how beautiful these new skeins are. I didn't really get a chance to touch them, or even look at them, for that matter. But knitting is definitely going to be that much more satisfying because our options are endless now.

I'm trying to put my week in order, and I fear that I will not complete all the tasks that need to get done. The dress, to be more specific. It's really just finishing work, but I tend to get really picky, so I can't really force myself to rush, because I want it to be as close to perfect as I can get it, ya know? I'm not the type to do a hack job, even though the person who will be wearing the dress would deserve it if the entire ensemble just fell apart. Hehe...that would be funny. Mean and probably a tad bit distracting, but funny.

I'm trying to stay optimistic without freaking out, but, yikes.....a little scary. I'm just going to try to take it all in stride. I wish I had a cheesecake right now. That would help.....

-T

OVEREXTENDED

I have to say that I have felt twenty years older the last week or so. Jeff actually purchased a heating pad because my back was spasming. That is so not good. Although I could act like this is surprising, I really have run myself ragged. I am in the finishing stages of my friend's bridesmaid's dress, and there's a level of pride in what I have accomplished, because I know that I have taken my time and I was meticulous in the construction of the dress. HOWEVER, it's really hard to feel joy when you feel like you're not appreciated.

I rushed to her mother's house on Wednesday night to do the final fitting, and I find her sitting on the piano bench playing kissy face with her husband. And in my head I'm screaming "DO YOU THINK YOU"RE THE ONLY ONE WHO WANTS TO SPEND TIME WITH HER HUSBAND!!!!" Practically every spare moment I had was put into that stupid dress, and she acts like this thing has come down from the clouds already made. ANNOYING.

Of course the sparkly satin green thing doesn't fit her. She's like, "Oh my, aren't I a plump little pigeon?" and I'm like, "No, but you are a pain in my plump little hiney". I had to separate myself from everyone and I just sat saying, "OK, alright, OK, alright".....just trying to think of the best way to tackle this monstrosity that was slowly becoming the bane of my existence.

I ended up having to take out the back and side seams and making 1/4 inch seam allowances as opposed to the 5/8 seam allowances that most clothing pattern require. It fits perfectly now, with a little extra room just in case she decides to eat a hamburger between now and August 30th. Was there a thank you involved? Nope. Seriously, though. Seriously.

So, I know, I can be a pushover, I should stand up for myself, I should tell her to blow it out her..........well, you know. But it's not in my nature. There are times I really want to, I mean REALLY, REALLY want to, but I have a difficult time being mean to people. EVEN when people are mean to me. There is that second where my body is in reactionary mode, and most people know to watch out if I allow myself to stay in that zone. But I have this switch that just shuts me down before I have the chance to lay into the person who has ticked me off.

I don't usually let myself get confrontational, because if I know myself. If I'm feeling confrontational, I'm probably going to be really loud, and pretty aggressive, and I don't back down when I get to that point. And then I run the strong possibility of hurting somebody....which I don't want to do. So I take a lot, and maybe I shouldn't. but c'est la vie. It's how I'm built.

And honestly, I also like challenging myself, and getting this dress done was a challenge, so, whatever. I bring on my own punishment. I'm crying myself a river. Moving on......

Saturday night, I went over to Nana's house. Nana is a 93 year old lady who I usually sit and knit with on Mondays but I've been so busy, I haven't been able to go. She's lonely and pretty much sits in her chair all day long watching TV Land, knitting baby hats and crocheting trim on socks. Because of overextending myself this week, I really wasn't in the mood to go over to Nana's, because it can be a little tiring. It's just another one of those moments where you realize that your time is not your own because someone else needs something from you. SO, needless to say, I felt a little aggravated.

And then, lo and behold, life showed me why I should just shut up, because I had a really good time sitting with her, and I'll tell you why. Nana makes me feel needed. When I walked into her house, she put out both of her arms and hugged and kissed me and said, "I have missed you something awful. Where did you go?" Good grief. I felt this pang of sadness in my stomach. Where did I go?

Being in her nineties, things are a little fuzzy for her, so her mind almost "loops"....meaning she will say something, and then ten minutes later, we're having the same conversation. So we talked about her childhood, and her bootlegging father, and the "new" episodes of M*A*S*H (thank God I love TV Land too; if not I wouldn't be able to talk to her about her shows!). She tells me when she had her stroke, and how the hospital can check her pace maker over the phone.

Then she says, " I thought of you every day and I wanted you to have this", and she handed me this beautiful doll that she had made clothes for. Ummmm........and yup.....I love her.



Anyhoo, I finished the gargantuan socks I was working on, and Jeff's sasquatch of a dad totally loved them. Best of all, they fit, which is awesome because if they hadn't, I simply would have set them on fire. Remember, I'm a camper now. I can start a fire. Hehe.
So, now I'm off, working on the vest I'm hoping I can have done for Jeff's mother's birthday......two and half weeks from now. Yeah, goals are a good thing.....right? What am I going to title my next blog? OVEREXTENDED - PART TWO? I'm such a tool!!

-T

FAVORITE CAMPING MOMENTS

So, it's now obvious that I actually do enjoy camping. Like I said, we weren't roughing it, and it wasn't like we couldn't just drive home if things got horrible, but this was definitely me stepping outside of the box and doing something different....something that actually wasn't all that enticing to me. I feel somewhat accomplished.

On the second night we camped, the weather was perfect, and the whole campground just seemed to pulsate with life. It's like the storm left everyone feeling grateful for the following day. I could hear other campers talking and laughing. The group right next to us was having a bachelor party weekend, and they played games and drank beer and cracked jokes the entire time. I wouldn't want to be anyone of them the next day with the hangover situation, but I think it was a nice way for them to spend their time. The camaraderie was nice. They asked me to take a picture for them so they could remember the "good times". I chuckled and told them I would do that for them, but I wanted them to know that there would surely be many more good times to come.

I spend the day knitting and reading a novel.....about knitting. Hehe. It was an amazing revelation to know that I could just sit there, under the trees without one pressing thing I had to attend to. The most work we really had to do was make sure the fire was stoked, and that wasn't a problem. Look how gorgeous is was:Even Larry was overwhelmed by its beauty. He danced around for about five minutes! One day I will prove that I have ONE normal friend. Ahem...maybe not! Hehe.

Jeff was able to spend some time playing his new guitar. I'm not quite certain he anticipated that his playlist was going to strictly consist of the Alphabet Song and This Old Man, but he is a child magnet and basically goes out of his way to make the little ones happy. Yet another reason I love this man.





Brian enjoyed his camping days by lounging on Chris' motorcycle. Apparently he has been trying to weasel it away from him for the last few months. It looks like he might just get his way......maybe. ;)




Chris and Heather enjoyed the sun and each other as much as possible. Just looking at their faces was enough to make you feel relaxed. They had the right idea, if you ask me.



And so our camping trip ended in the same fashion I guess everyone's camping trip ends. We cleaned up our site, gathered our furniture and took down the tents. OH, speaking of taking down the tents. I have decided that watching two grown men work vehemently to get a tent back to it original packaging size is one of my favorite things to do!! What a bunch of weirdos!




Now I don't want to seem like a sap and under no circumstances do I think that my life is the most stressful one in existence. I know it's not. For the most part I spend my days doing the things I love to do and I get to go home to someone who loves me as much as I love him. But sometimes life gets a bit fast and unruly, maybe even a little untidy, and getting away for two days helped me recenter myself. I saw a sign on the way into the campground, and it was very simple and yet profound. Here it is:




For two day I was able to drive in the slow lane, so to speak. I had nothing to do and I had no where to be. I suppose it's kind of liberating to know that sometimes it takes something as simple as sleeping in a tent as the rain crashes down overhead to make life seem a whole lot easier. So, tonight, I wish you all restful and peaceful dreams as I crawl into bed......the bed in my house............


I think I like my camping bed better. ;)

-T

CAMPING: PART THREE

Slowly my friends started trickling into the camp and I bit my tongue every single time someone would ask why Sarah and I had only taken two sites. I mean, granted, we didn't reserve a spot; but also, Sarah and I were the only ones who got to the camp in the first place to get the ones we had now, so everyone could cry me a river. The only one who would have had an excuse not to help secure a site was Jeff because he was working, and he still managed to exchange the tents and bring all the furniture during his lunch break.

Once everyone was there, it took very little time to get everything set up. Tents and pop ups found their spaces, beds were made, the campfire was already crackling. I'm going to be honest. Once the tent got staked into the ground and Jeff got there, I was feeling pretty good. I didn't have the anxiety I was feeling pretty much the entire time before we got there. But I did know a serious thunderstorm was coming and even though I had a good feeling that our tent would stay upright, I was still a little nervous. But even though it was dreary, I thought the trees looked beautiful.

Food was ready at about seven and we all sat down and ate together. Foil wrap is a magnificent thing. Other than the typical hotdogs and hamburgers, we had stopped at a vegetable stand and picked up a dozen ears of corn and four or five zucchini squash, which we drizzled with butter, wrapped in foil and threw in the coals. We did the same to golden potatoes and onions. Yum!!
By 7:45, we knew the storm was pretty much right on top of us, so we quickly grabbed all the things that we knew we would appreciate more if they stayed dry and placed them in cars and tents.

I have always loved thunderstorms. I've just never had to sleep outside during one. At 8:15, the sky came down and I lay in the bed next to Jeff, praying that the tent would stay up. It was only rain, but it was coming down really hard, and watching the lightning through the fabric of the tent was pretty exciting. We talked and giggled in the dark, and my friend Sarah and I yelled to each other back and forth through the screen, laughing that we couldn't hear each other over the thunder. By ten o clock I was out like a light.

I woke up at 1:30 am because I heard my friend Brian moving around. There was a group of teenagers at the far end of the campground who had a vehicle that kept sounding its alarm....and they didn't find it necessary to turn off the darn thing. Since we were awake anyway, we walked to the other campsite, found that our friend Chris was also awake; started a little fire in the pit and hung out for about an hour before we went back to sleep.

OK, now I can show you some pictures of WHY I can say "Don't cry for me, Argentina". I am totally spoiled and I'm not really sure I went camping, for that matter! Hehe.

First of all, leave it to the love of my life to discover that we UNKNOWINGLY managed to snag the only campsite that had live outlets. Guess what he plugged in first....huh? Any guesses? Ahhh, sweet laptop....How would he ever live without you? This is camping?!!! Hehehehe!

And then, now that everyone knows the outlets are there, here's what I woke up to the following morning: Percolating coffee! Larry woke up at five in the morning, drove back to his house and packed up his coffee maker and mugs!



And let's not forget the ORGANIC pancake batter that comes out of a whipped cream can...straight into the pan! ORGANIC? I doubt it!! HA!





And the biggest reason I know I'm a spoiled baby, but thank goodness I am because I don't think I would have enjoyed myself at all - our bed!

CAMPING: PART TWO

Sarah and I decided that instead of twiddling our thumbs waiting for the rest of the gang to get there, we were going to try to assemble the new tent. It would give us something to do, and Jeff would be impressed that I was able to set up our humble abode without him. So we dragged the tent out of the car, opened up the packaging, and this is what I found:









I know, I know. Of course, the tent was going to be much larger and it would accommodate everything we needed it to, but don't you think it's a little funny that something Jeff and I were going to live in for the next two nights looked like it could fit in my dresser drawer?

Moving on. I am a firm believer of reading directions, so the super smart people at Coleman have the assembly instructions sewn into the carrying case. Awesome. I remove pieces as I read off the list. It says: Three long supporting poles (black). I reach in and grab one pole. So far so good. Out comes another pole..but this one is thinner and gray. I read further. This is the pole for the awning. Fine. That is until we realize that there are no more poles in the bag. We are short two supporting poles which camper or no camper, I know that's going to be a HUGE problem!!

I don't know whether to freak out or laugh hysterically. Considering I wasn't hurt, nor was I in any danger, the situation proved to be quite comical and I burst out laughing. Sarah on the other hand was rather cross, and immediately called customer service, as if they would be able to do something. After five minutes on hold, she is greeted by a poor man who gets paid to listen to irate customers complain to him about things he has absolutely no control over. She explains our plight, and I laugh even louder when I hear him say "Excuse me ma'am, did you just say you have no poles?" Rolling her eyes, Sarah hands me the phone and I confirmed that there were no supporting poles in the tent kit.

He sighs and is clearly very confused. He asks if I purchased the tent...I informed him that I stole it and then immediately apologized for my sarcasm and said "Yes, we just bought it". So he says what I expected him to say. "Return it to the store and get another one. That's all I can do for you, ma'am". To which I respond, "Are you sure you can't just send someone over here to assemble this one for us?" It took about five seconds before he realized that I was kidding and started to chuckle. After offering us some sort of coupon, I got off the phone with him, called Jeff and told him that he had to grab the receipt, go back to Walmart and trade in the tent.

OK, so I almost dropped the phone when Jeff says "I'm not sure where the receipt is". WHAT!! This is a man that has kept a receipt for a Twix candy bar I ate three years ago!! And he doesn't know where he put the receipt for the tent?!!! For crying out loud!! ANYHOO, we decide to just buy another tent and just exchange them. To make a super long story short (I fear there is going to be a part three to this camping story, and I apologize for being long winded and dramatic, but if I can't have fun writing blogs, what's the point?), the tent worked out fine in the end............................

-T

CAMPING: PART ONE

Friday morning I woke up, already thinking about how many reasons I could feasibly come up with to back out of this camping trip without A) offending and disappointing my friends and B)without looking like the biggest, whiniest, spineless tool known to humankind. See, this is how I think in my head....when things happen in my life, they are always of astronomical proportions!! HUMANKIND would be affected by my bailing out of camping.

I'm watching the weather channel, groaning every time I saw that stupid image of the cloud with the lighting bolt shooting from it like a death dagger. 60% chance of thunderstorms for the day. And I'm going camping. I can't even tell Jeff that I don't want to go because he's already done the very nice, "man loves his woman" thing, by getting a nice tent and a very sturdy queen size air mattress that sits on its very own frame.

So, it's 9 in the morning and I'm sitting on my bed, putting my clothes together and I am trying to keep track of all of the tips my friends have been giving me to make this trip a tolerable one. Make sure I have a tarp to cover the tent, don't touch the tent walls because it draws water in, keep my eye open for the bobcats (that was almost the deal breaker), bring bug repellent,....

The plan is to meet my friends Sarah and Larry and we are going to stake our claim on some good camping land. We have to meet early so that we have first dibs. Well, already I knew that they had a completely different idea of what early was because I would have been there at the crack of dawn. Sarah and I didn't get there until 11:30. Larry was nowhere to be found.

OK, so as Sarah and I are driving to the site, I mention to her that my friend, who happens to be a very seasoned camper informed me that we probably should have made reservations. Well, I must have grown a bellybutton on my forehead because she gave me this look of "Seriously, though, what's the matter with you?!!" She scoffs and says, "We do NOT need to make a reservation. We're camping, not getting a room at the Hilton!". I just shrug my shoulders. What do I know? I can only repeat what I hear, right?

So, like I said before, we get there at 11:30 and as we're driving though this very quaint, non intimidating area, my heart starts to pound a little faster, but with excitement and not fear. Hmmm....interesting. I'm looking at all of these tidy little sites with their own picnic tables and I'm thinking to myself, "we have the pick of the day. These sites are all empty", until I read what the signs on the posts say: OCCUPIED.

Post after post after post says that the site is occupied. I look over at Sarah, who now has a worried look on her face. Playing dumb, I say, "What does that mean?" OK, my parents paid two grand a year for me to go to private school for nine years. I better know what the word "OCCUPIED" means. But I'm being a bit of a pretentious turd and I'm curious how she's going to answer.

"I guess that we need reservations", she says. Eureka!! Ding, ding, ding! We've got a brain in our midst! Of course we need a reservation, you wingnut! So I get out of the car to read the sign for camp regulations and I am informed that usually reservations are made, and THEN people can come and camp on the UNreserved sites. We made a mad dash back to the car and found the last two remaining sites that were not occupied. We parked the car at one site and ran to the other site, making sure that any potential site snatcher would know they were too late. Sarah and I had saved the day for our group of friends. Come hell or highwater, we were going camping..............................

-T

I am going camping tomorrow. Those are probably the most horrifying words I have ever typed. Eeeeee Gads!

So, it's Thursday night and it was a fantastic night at the knitting shop. For the first ten minutes I think I just sat and listened to the eight different conversations that were going on and I was so content. There's nothing better than being in the middle of a group of people who can be carefree and laugh from the belly. It's awesome.

My dear friend, (who I won't name because that might be too embarrassing) came and spend a good deal of the day with me, and I was so happy to see her. But then again, I'm always happy to see her, so I hope she continues to come.

So, back to this crazy thing people call camping. I'm at the point where I think that there's a little alien that has completely taken control of all of the rational parts of my brain. My reasoning for my entire adult life has always been why am I going to pay mortgage every month so that I can purposely sleep OUTSIDE?!! Is it really a vacation if you have to fend off the mosquitoes, pray to God that your tent isn't going to collapse or get struck by lightning, assume that Mama, Papa and Baby bear aren't going to try to run off with your picnic basket, and seriously.....SERIOUSLY is it a vacation when you have to trudge through the woods to go poop in an outhouse?!!!! What is fun about roughing it?

I am freaking out! OK, so we have a tent....a pretty nice one, I think. But now I'm told that I have to bring a tarp to put on TOP of it just in case it rains! AND I can't touch the walls because the water will seep into our new home. Oh, and I need to get some sort of plastic to put UNDER the tent to protect us from water coming into the tent that way. This is totally not making any sense. Why get a tent? What's next.....we have to dig a trench a pour a foundation?!

The only thing I'm confident about is that there will be food. And I'll have my knitting with me. So now, before I lay me down to sleep in my nice bed in the house that we pay to live in, I am making a list of all the things I need for tomorrow.......comfy clothes, food, bottled water, knitting, blankets and pillows.....my sanity.......Oh good Lord!!! What am I doing?

Ugh.....will keep you posted....if I don't eaten by bears first.



-T