Three Paragraphs

Since coming face-to-face with the monumental task of clearing out Mama and Daddy's house, I've been on a bit of a crusade around here.  I'm trying to get rid of my clutter/things that I can't imagine either Briton or Hannah wanting once I'm gone.  This morning, I came across a box filled with photos, cards, etc. that were being saved for decoupage.  It was fun going through the box, winnowing out the ones that didn't strike me as it seemed they once did.  But now, I want to decoupage!  And Hannah said something last night about wanting to go to Michaels. . .  Must use all my self-control not to buy anything.  After all, this is still the year of my not having a job.

And I have discovered some ugly, ugly truths about someone close to me.  I'm at a loss as to what to do, but know I shouldn't do anything until I've calmed down.  What this person doesn't seem to realize is that, yes, lying = not telling the truth, but, also choosing not to tell the whole story = not telling the truth.  And while my temperament might appear easy-going a lot of the time, one thing that I cannot, will not, abide is being lied to.   I'm not stupid, you know --- I can put things together pretty quickly, and I know when they don't add up.

My knitting is coming along apace.  I've got about half of one sleeve to go on a sweater for myself, and, now that the Christmas deadline is gone, I've started --- again --- on a sweater for Briton.  Ongoing are wash/dish/cloths out of leftover cotton and a rippled blanket from leftover worsted.  Too, though I'd avoided spinning until now (I didn't need another hobby, with more boxes of supplies laying about), Roxanne has sent me a drop spindle and a shopping bag of roving, so I'm going to have to figure the process out.  I want to enjoy it, but not too much, you know?

Christmas Wrap

Nice day here yesterday --- how was yours?

Among the presents I received:

Could those be ANY cuter????*  You should all know how I feel about Yoda by now.  And Maleficent is my favorite Disney villain.

Also got some lovely smiles and hi-jinks from these two:

Oh, yeah, and Thor.  What a guy.

 I must admit to having some very sad moments.  After we had opened all the gifts and sort of settled into the day, I realized that it was the time that I always called home to wish Mama and Daddy Merry Christmas.  And now I have no one to call.  And we have no "second Christmas" to go to. . .  For me, at least, things were very glum on and off all day.

But, I did do some Christmas Day knitting.  Not on either of these things, mind you.  These were finished some time ago:

 One of the other socks made of Norville Serenity yarn, and

a Noro shawl.

I certainly plan to do a great deal more knitting today.  Once I clear all the dirty dishes out of the sink, that is!  ;]

Enjoy the rest of your holidays!

*The answer, of course, would be "No."

Random Thoughts

Going to leave this tab open all day, and just record some of what crosses my mind.  Would that be okay with everybody?

Why, thank you.

It is my Favorite Day of The Year.  Christmas Eve is all about baking cookies (at least in our house) and excitement and being finished with all the rushing about and that marvelous anticipatory quiet and stillness that descend after the sun goes down.  Christmas Day can sometimes disappoint.  Christmas Eve never does.

Proof of the use of an Amazon gift card*:

 (Below "Bringing Up Baby is Saramago's memoir.  When I finish with his novel, All the Names, either that, or the letters to the President book, will be my next read.)

One of our Christmas Eve rituals is cookie-baking.  I'm also baking a breakfast casserole and a coffee cake for tomorrow, so there'll be more kitchen activity than usual.  We also always visit a live Nativity scene one of the local churches has, then come back to open one gift each, then watch "The Muppet Christmas Carol."  

Mama, Daddy and I didn't really have any Christmas traditions, unless you call me having to pull these off Daddy's feet after a tough Christmas Eve at the store one:

 Each year, when we go to the Nativity scene, I wear these in honor:

Inside the boots will be a pair of handknit socks --- made from Deborah Norville's "Serenity" sock yarn.  Now, I'm no Deborah Norville fan, but Jo-Ann had the yarn on sale for a ridiculously low price, so I got some.  I bought 2 skeins each of 3 different colorways, and it turns out that I got a full pair out of just 1 skein.  How often does that happen?  This is the color I'm wearing:

It's beautiful worked up, and is nice and soft.  Maybe an early holiday miracle?

Have a Magnificent Christmas.  You've been a great support in a year that I needed constant boosting.  Thank you.



*This mostly for the benefit of Twinnie.

The Christmas Sock

For me, at least, this week has gone by the way adults like/need the few days before Christmas to go, and that children despise the few days before Christmas to go --- slowly.  Not at a snail's pace, mind you, but at a nice, manageable pace that let me breathe normally.  I was able to do what had to be done without being frantic.  I was able to check and double-check "What Must Needs Be Done" lists, deprived of that it-will-never-happen-now pit-of-the-stomach feeling.

Except for stockings.  Stockings are my annual fifth column.  They were a tad easier when the children were small, and little toys fit snug down in the heels and toes.  Now, though, they are pretty tough.

Stockings, to me, have always been the secret weapons of Christmas.  In all the hurry and flurry of getting to and unwrapping what's under the tree, they're sort of forgotten.  When someone does remember to get to them, what an opportunity there is for a final hurrah --- a primo elfin gift or two to finish off the day.  So, I tend to focus on stockings beyond candy and fruit --- hoping to find small treasures that will top the day off in a special way.  

 

(I'm sure a good deal of that comes from having a father who was a jeweler --- lots of fantastic, sparkly things can fit very nicely into a stocking.)

 

Another reason I'm such a fan of stockings is that they can come shaped as cowboy boots:

I have a boot-shaped stocking which hangs on my bedroom door each Christmas.  It's for decoration, as we each have cross-stitched stockings hanging from the mantle.  But, if someone felt compelled to slip something into it, there wouldn't be a fuss made.

Day, Day, Day. . .

Tough day Sunday, as I was weepy and guilt-ridden and sad.  I should know by now that grief truly does hit in waves;  it would be nice, though, if there were some sort of lifeguard to warn you when the tides begin to rise.

Maybe someone sorta like this:

Yesterday was full of errands, today was pretty much the same --- looking forward to tomorrow, when there's nothing going on during the day.  Tomorrow night, Hannah and I get to go see Briton in a reading of "The Seagull". And then, I think, we are all free for Christmas.

How's things in your neck of the woods?

Ten Essential Songs

1. "To Love Somebody" --- Bee Gees
2. "Words"--- Bee Gees
3. "Gold" --- Emmylou Harris
4. "American Trilogy" --- Elvis Presley
5. "Darkness, Darkness" --- Iain Matthews
6. "Take It Easy" --- Delbert McClinton
7. "Seven Spanish Angels" --- Ray Charles and Willie Nelson
8. "Amazing Grace"
9. "Tennessee Waltz"
10. "When A Man Loves A Woman" --- Percy Sledge

You?

If You Were Me Today

1.  You would have awakened after dreaming about your First Grade Boyfriend.

2.  You would have a Cat Stevens song stuck in your head.

3.  You would not be, nor would you have ever been, a Cat Stevens fan.

4.  You would be puzzled by the shape of the garment you are knitting, even though you are following the pattern to the letter.

5.  (You would think the garment is either upside down or backward --- either one not good.)

6.  You would have e-mailed your therapist 3 times over a raging argument with your daughter.

7.  You would have received an Amazon gift card from your amazing twin sister.
8.  You would have already spent the card.
9.  You would have been sent this awesome link by an awesome friend.

Guardian Angel Roxanne sent me (through facebook) to a page with some nice advice.  The best of the bunch for me just now:

Stop putting your own needs on the back burner.
 Stop trying to be someone you're not.
Stop being scared to make a mistake.
Stop trying to compete against everyone else.
Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others.
Stop trying to make things perfect.*
Stop trying to be everything to everybody.^
Stop worrying so much.#


*A common mom problem, I suspect.  Definitely a Me problem, having been raised by a woman who did seem to do every single thing perfectly.
^I know this is a mom deal --- trying to meet every child's needs.  It also dovetails into the making things perfect issue.  And I'm still trying to be everything to a person who isn't here any more.
# How easily typed, how near-impossibly done.

I Promise

One day, these posts won't be "Oh, Pitiful Me"-themed.  But that's pretty much where I am right now.

 

Briton is in his new apartment.  Yesterday was fairly exhausting, yet I had trouble getting to sleep last night.  I'm interested to see how he did his first night in the new place.  We're meeting up in just a little while to go get Hannah.  I don't think she had a very pleasant end to her semester, and I don't think she's going to want to talk about it, though we surely need to.  We simply can't keep spending what little money we have on sending her to school if she isn't going to be a student.

And need-to-do-s from Nashville are still rolling around in my head.  Basically, I'm in a constant state of near-panic.  Or, more accurately, near-panic-attack.  I just cannot get my mind to be still.  And trying to distract myself fails utterly.  Losing Mama --- hell, this whole year --- has made me realize how easily time can be wasted.  It can slip out from under you before you know it, and you never get it back.  What have I done this year?  A nervous breakdown.  And a half.  Couldn't find a job.  Now, trying to pull together a Christmas, funds are even scarcer than they were last year, my heart and mind and dealing with grief and loss and children's problems. . .  "Let this Christmas go," I've heard in my head more than once lately.  "There will be others."  Maybe.  But what if this one is our last one all really together?  What if, for everyone's sake, this needs to be a really fun holiday?  Who puts that together?  It's supposed to be me, I guess.  And I'm not up to the challenge.

Back in Athens, getting ready to move Briton into his apartment tomorrow, then go to Atlanta to bring Hannah home for the holidays Tuesday.  Thoroughly unsettled, body and mind.

Time

I am in Middle Tennessee.  Have been since Sunday night, actually.  I had wi-fi installed in Mama and Daddy's house today, so that when we come here in the future, we don't have to live computerless.

It has been an agonizing week.  I brought Finn with me, and discovered on the trip up --- discovered twice, to be exact --- that he gets carsick.  And he's been very (understandably) whiney when I've had to leave to undertake all this paperwork, then very (understandably) clingy when I return.  I've tried to keep my outings to a minimum, but what you find when you try to wrap up a deceased parent's affairs is that one necessary form always leads to at least two others.  And appointments must be made.  And it is cold and raining and then snowing, and you are on such an edge that you are eating your anti-anxiety medication like candy.  And when you finish a day's traversing, you start downing melatonin and ibuprofen PM so you can just go to sleep and not have to feel the panic anymore.

I've had people offer to come by, to talk to me on the phone, but I simply haven't been able to face that.  I've been so frantic, so distressed that I knew having to talk with anyone would undoubtedly send me right over the edge.  So I've lain here with my feet elevated and my heart pounding, and poor little Finn skooching up as close to me as he can get, begging not to pass out.  Or crack up.

And I have to come back and do this time and time and who knows how many more times again before everything is really done.

I just can't look at any of that right now.  It's too, too, too much.

Next Steps

The death certificates are supposedly on their way.  When they arrive, Finn and I will leave for Nashville.  I'm taking him for the company, and for the fact that he is the most high-maintenance of the pets, and Briton has a busy enough week ahead of him without having to "put up" with all of Finn's shenanigans.

 

We have Riley, Mama's cat, here with us now.  She, in her own house, was the most skittish cat I've ever been around, so you can imagine how timid she's being here with all the noise and paws and barking and general carrying on.  She has come to live under Hannah's bed --- Hannah made really good progress with her before she (Hannah) went back to school.  Again, since Finn is the most energetic soul in the house, his absence might prompt her to come out and explore a little.  Poor thing --- she's been through a lot.  I know she was right there with Mama when and after she died.

I don't know how long all the "getting things in order" will take me.  Briton moves into his own apartment the 12th, and I know he wants me here to help him.  But I can only go as quickly as the Williamson County, Tennessee bureaucracy will allow.  One of the very first things I'm going to do is make an appointment to have wi-fi installed in the house.  Whenever any of us is up there, I want us to be able to compute.  We used to just go to Borders, but. . .

I've got two bags of knitting packed, along with one I left up there.  I seem to be expecting an awful lot of downtime.  We shall see.