Library School!

I did it! I got into library school and I started last Monday. I've got three classes, two online and one "live" class. It's only been a week but I am not overwhelmed yet, which is a good thing, right?

I'm working on school stuff so knitting has fell by the wayside. Two crochet blankets sit right next to my chair looking at me and telling me I should work on them. I will eventually. I know where my camera is and it's charged so I will take pictures of them too.

But today it's all white and snowy outside, I don't have to work and nothing is due for school until Tuesday and most of that is done and ready to turn in. So I think I might curl up with a blanket and some pleasure reading. I've got The Descendants, The Book Thief (which I already read, but my new book club is reading it this month, so I need a refresher) and Rules of Civility. Decisions, decisions.

Too long

I know it's been too long since I've posted. I'm sure no one read this anymore, except maybe Jenni, because she keeps telling me I should post again!

I'm definitely on the downward slope of a midlife crisis. I did all the fun things, like piercing my ears, and wearing acrylic nails. Now I'm questioning the decisions I made along the way - like not finishing my bachelor's degree sooner, or foregoing any kind of career to raise my kids. I guess I am not questioning staying home with the rugrats, I wouldn't give that up for anything. But I wonder if I could have done it all, career and kids. I've always said I think that someone or something gets short changed in that deal, but now that my kids are almost grown I feel like I have nothing important to do, right when I feel like I should be doing something important.

I applied to library school. I'm stressing about getting in. My grade point average from 20 years ago was less than stellar. But I had to try, because you know what? The one thing I know is that i was meant to work in a library and my instinct tells me that I would make a great librarian. There is no place I feel more at home and on top of my game. We will see.

I'm into knitting massive projects. I finally finished Marijo's afghan. I will take pictures after I weave in the rest of the ends. I think there were about 5,000. No really, let's do the math here. Four colors per square equals 8 ends. 64 squares X 8 ends per square is (hold on here, I have to find a pencil and paper or the calculator on the computer which I am not sure how to use) 512. Is that right? It felt like a lot more. Although 512 is a lot.

Now I've started a ten stitch zig zag blanket. It's a pattern from ravelry by Frankie Brown. It seems fun so far. I'm going to go work on it right now, before I go to work at 12.

It's been a while . . .

I've been stressed out. Used to be that would have me turning to the blog, but this time I just holed up with some books and lots of reality tv. But I figured a blog post couldn't hurt. It seems I have given up on my camera. I need to charge it up and start taking pictures again! Or, I could just use my fancy new smart phone! I got a Droid X and am finally getting used to it. By used to it I mean I'm not accidentally calling facebook contacts that I haven't talked to in years. I didn't know when I linked my facebook to the phone that it would list all of my fb friends in my contacts list! And I'm getting better at typing on the touch screen. But I still haven't figured out how to put pictures on the computer. I've taken a few of my recent projects. Baby Church's afghan is documented (it's ok, because I'm giving it to my friend Kristin tomorrow and I'm sure she won't read this because no one thinks I blog anymore) and my Savannah's blanket is done too. Both of these projects are crochet, inspired by Linda's hexagon experiment. I loved her pictures and decided to try myself! I've always had trouble with the corners on granny squares, but I figured a hexagon doesn't have to be shaped like a square. In fact, it shouldn't be square shaped at all! I like a hexagon. Just started on a log cabin-y mitered square afghan for my sister-in-law. I like it. It's nice, simple knitting, perfectly suited for tv knitting, which by the way, is my favorite kind of knitting. I have a job. I work as a clerk five days on, five days off - which you would think would mean M-F, a week off, then M-F again, but you would be wrong! It's W-F, M & T and then the next seven days off. It's called part-time, but the days I work are full days. I kind of like working four hours a day better. I've been missing Savannah's volleyball games and I may miss Sophie's softball games and I don't like that. I am a stay-at-home mom and I feel like nothing should interfere with that. And if you could see the pile of laundry after working for five days? I feel like all I do on my days off is wash clothes. Blah. But I shouldn't complain. The reading specialist at my kids old elementary school, who moonlights at a yarn store, told my Sophie about the schools monthly knit night and told her to invite me, so I'm going to hang with the knitting teachers. I hung with a lot of teachers in Alpena (none of them knit though) and they were all very nice so hopefully this will be fun. They are knitters right? It will be fun. I'm going to a knit night on April 13 I'll figure that Droid out and post pictures next time. I promise.

I knit a whole something!

I finished a knitting project! A one scrunchable scarf, out of this really pretty yarn with a goofy name - Plymouth Mushimushi or something like that! (I used the color #15) And - I'm almost done with a hat - Felictiy - from the same skein. It's a huge skein. Really. Something like 400 yards.

I haven't really finsihed any knitting since we moved home. Oh sure, there are single socks floating around, but not even the start of a second sock.

I did finish two ripple crochet throws. Well, one still needs fringe. But I'm fringed out.

I think the reason I finished the scarf and have nearly completed the hat is simple avoidance. You know, denial of reality. Too much crap is going on in my life right now. Issues over which I really have little or no control. But I can control how much knitting I get done. I'm also getting very good at how much laundry I let stack up too.

Anyway, I'll post pics soon. I've just got to delete some of the pics on my memory card and load the little card into the computer and post them.

Oh - and another really good way to avoid reality? Kindle. You hear about a good book, push a couple of buttons, and there the book sits, right in front of you! Instant gratification. It's dangerous really.

Mice

Well . . . .

We are all settled in here in Clawson. My girls are doing great. Joe's working here and there and I'm still looking for a job, but all in all, we are ok.

Except for the mouse.

We moved back into our lovely, clean, freshly painted home and it's stayed clean, believe it or not. So when I saw the mouse poop in the bottom cupboard, I wanted to cry. I don't like mice. They are disgusting, sneaky, creepy little rodents and they belong outside, far, far away from my house, not in my freaking pristine cabinets!

I will show no mercy. I was all for poisoning the little bastard and his family. But Joe pointed out that when you poison them, they have to go somewhere to die, potentially in the walls and that's just creepy. He also said the Billy the Exterminator didn't like using poison. I told him if he was willing to call Billy the Exterminator and have him come over and kill the mice, I'd be all about not poisoning him. Of course, Billy costs money and since we are unemployed, we went with the traps. Oh, not the humane traps. Look, if they want to live, more power to them - they just need to live OUTSIDE. Inside, all bets are off. So we put out the old fashioned, snap their little spines, mouse traps.

All that did was provide the little fuckers a steady meal of peanut butter for a couple of days. Once again, I pointed out the need for poison, but Joe, in his wisdom, said perhaps we should try a more sensitive trap. I said fine. But if they ate the damn peanut butter again, I would by the d-con myself.

This morning Sophie woke us up by telling us there was a dead mouse in the cupboard! Victory! Joe threw it in the garbage. But that reminded me of what a friend did, when confronted with the dead mouse in the mouse trap.

She made her teenage son take the thing out and swing it around the front yard a couple of times so all the other mice would know what happened to mice that ventured into her house! Genius. As another friend pointed out to me, you've got to let them know who's boss!

My blog got mentioned in my Alumni Newsletter!

Does that qualify me as famous?

Really, Kalamazoo College's Be-Light E Newsletter mentioned me under the Class Notes section - and I totally did not send that information to them - so who did?

I was totally shocked, they mentioned that I had a blog and that in it I chronicled my experience of finally finishing my SIP twenty years later, and linked to that post! I feel kind of cool now!

But guess what? Not only am I now finished with my SIP, but I've completed my gym credits and in December (which is when they print up the diplomas) I will be the proud owner of a Bachelor of Arts Degree with a French Major from Kalamazoo College! Yay!!!!!!!!! Although, word to the wise for other people thinking of majoring in French - double major in some kind of business-y thing, because really, I'm not very marketable at the moment. I plan to remedy this by taking the GRE and getting into Library Science School, but really, it would have been much easier to do when I was younger.

moving back home

I've posted it on Ravelry already, but I thought I'd do it here. I'm moving back to the D. Or, well, the metro Detroit area, which is the place I call home. I tried to call Alpena home. And I'm very sad to be leaving. I'll miss my friends, my job, my book club, the swans in the river, the snowy winters (really, I mean it, I love the snow). Oh, I know I complained but I thought this was where I would be, for a really long time, and so I adjusted. Only to have the rug pulled out from under me. From under my entire family really. I'm not ready to talk about why we are leaving, but someday I will be. I can't wait for that day.

But in an effort to look on the bright side, here is a list of shit I won't miss in Alpena.

1. Road kill that lays on the side of the road for weeks at a time.
2. The melting plastic smell that permeates the air 4 out of 7 days a week from the panel processing plant in town.
3. The way the most of the locals look at you like you are still a stranger after two years.
4. The absence of any real Mexican cuisine.
5. The lack of a decent bookstore (ok, at least there is one here, but let's face it, it's substandard)
6. The absence of any real Chinese food (really what I mean is that there is no Young's here!)
7. The only radio station that played semi-decent music (it's catch phrase is "playing the 80's, the 90's and now" emphasis on 80's and really it should say "80's no one listened to)
8. Going to the store without showering and seeing at least three people you know.
9. How the "important" people here think that they really are important
10. All three McDonald's and all three Subway's.