Two Blogs Are One--and Comments

Just a note to say that all the posts from my first blog are now listed on this one. The only odd thing is that I didn't take the time to figure out how to re-post comments, so they are in the text of each post. I left in the amusing translations I wrote for Lee's STBX (very S).

Speaking of comments. I miss them. I like hearing from my friends and "fans." So, say hi sometime, or I'll end up feeling like I am writing just for me. Hmm, actually I sort of AM writing just for me. I'd keep this up as a journal even if no one else read, but I still enjoy the feedback.

Now I can go delete the old blog! Yay. I accomplished at least one of my "things to do while unemployed" goals.

Rose Becomes a Woman, What's Up

I haven't posted much this week, mainly because it hasn't been a ravingly exciting week. I have been pampering myself, taking it easy, and knitting a lot.

It was a more exciting week for Rose the Puppy, however. She's 6 months old now and had to suffer two indignities in one week. First, she had to go to Taylor to her old vet to get the rest of her puppy shots (they got delayed when Lee was having "issues"), which caused her to barf all over Lee's car. Second, she had to have all her "lady parts" removed yesterday (sure don't want any MORE puppies around here). She is doing pretty well and not running around and messing up her innards.

My friend Janet's daughter had asked us to babysit her two yorkies over the weekend (6 dogs, whee), but it would have been way too exciting for Rose's surgical scars. Good thing she ended up not needing us after all (I know the dogs would love the teeny dogs, long as Buddy didn't eat one or anything, LOL).

Anyway, think recovery thoughts for Rose, pictured here last week guarding her doggie door.

In other news, I did get some nice clothing for the new job, including red patent leather shoes (cha cha cha!), and I painted my nails very red in celebration. Best nail polish job I have done in ages--only one tiny chip and it's been four days! And most important, YES I got my hair done, so the disgusting inch of roots that was glaring at me every day is history, and I am a sparkling strawberry blonde with light highlights. I just got the bangs cut, so it's still long and pretty much the same as the previous lovely cut.

The weather was beautiful for a couple of days, so I spent a bit of time outside enjoying my yard in the daylight (not much of that starting soon!). It's getting rainy AGAIN so I am glad I had fun when I could. I hope it won't be too bad tomorrow so we can work on projects. The rain will be good for the new grass, though. I think it is gonna stick!!!

Now that my stress has lessened, Lee's has picked up, so I have tried to support him as much as I can. They keep delaying announcements about what is going on in our former department, so everyone feels up in the air. It has to be hard to concentrate on projects, not knowing if you get to do them or not. Even under stress, it is wonderful to be with Lee and to enjoy our relationship. It's simply the best one I have ever had. We both feel so lucky.

Aside: I have to say I sure am consistent. One of the jobs I was up for didn't come through. Oh, the dude said I was the best candidate (it was the one making wikis), but they had to use a particular agency, so the folks pitching me couldn't get me in. Since I was recently reading through the old blog, it's been so apparent that I come in second a LOT! Funny.

And happy Friday the 13th!! Busy weekend coming up, so I should have stuff to report.

Greenhouse Effect

Ooh, it was a cold weekend. We had sleet much of the day Saturday, and there was white stuff on the roofs of the houses when we woke up. Either snow or sleet accumulation.

We brought in most of the delicate plants and covered the ones we could not bring in. Most (I think all) survived, though yesterday the peppers looked puny. Today they are perky again. Perky Peppers!

In honor of the cold snap, here's a photo I took that I call "Greenhouse Effect." (It's photoshopped, so that's why it looks stylized.) These plants made it through the cold snap just fine...the frame is the old door that we took off when we installed the new one with doggie door ("we" being Lee). He just leaned the old door against the house under the kitchen window until we figured out what to do with it. Well, the bad ole weed plants that keep coming up between the house and the patio of course emerged behind the door. They ended up growing rather prettily and look like plants in a lovely greenhouse, not weeds and a discarded door. (In there is Virginia Creeper, Wandering Jew and a lantana seedling from the plants in the front of the house thanks I guess to the wonders of bird poop).

Obviously all this door and weedage has to go, but I am glad we got some photos of it before it went!

Other than coldness, it was an OK weekend. The Flower Communion at Ye Olde Spiritual Community went fine, and I got a flower that perfectly matched my purplish shrug. There was a children's choir and they did GREAT (especially compared to previous attempts at getting kids to sing at this church). We were all late, but managed to sing our song OK. It was the one with weird UU lyrics and including the word "architrave" of some such unfamiliar word.

At home, Lee, Beccano and I cooked a lot. The boy and I made pear cobbler from scratch (and it was delicious, with three types of pear). I made deviled eggs with tartar sauce because the mayo we bought has disappeared. It was interesting, but people ate it. I baked bread with ricotta cheese in it, and that was way yummy and moist (we had extra because we got a large container of it for the lasagna). And Lee and I made lasagna. He did it, mostly and it was GREAT. MMMM. We have great leftovers right now, including split pea soup I made on Saturday.

My sister showed up for her final holiday meal before moving, and we ended up also having the Girl with us at dinner, since her family was late picking her up after visiting Older Boy much of the day. Poor Older Boy has lots of ups and downs now that the Girl is in the picture. But he is mostly happy, and she's quite nice. It was good to have here there. We had a pretty fun meal and used the big table in the dining room, which I had decorated in yellow and purple and green with fertility symbols all over it (glass eggs, birds, and butterfly paperweights).

My only unsuccessful event of the weekend was a knitting mess up. I bought some GORGEOUS yarn, GGH Mystik in color 94, a VERY green and shiny color that looks like an emerald. I decided to make a lacey round yoked top in the new Rebecca pattern collection out of it, because it will really show yarn overs well. So, I spend all Saturday night cursing and swearing as I tried to cable cast on with size 1 metal needles and this slippery yarn. Then began tedious twisted ribbing. Then said, hmm, this appears rather wide. I looked at the instructions. Where I mentally heard 140 stitches, the actual number was 114. You can see how my auditory/kinesthetic learning style did NOT help in that case! So, I have to cast on again. I didn't knit on that yesterday. I kept plugging away on my lovely bamboo shawl. Still have to finish the top-down sweater from the class, too. I know what I am doing with it, now. A horizontal leaf border, then feather and fan to the end. It will be "different."

Weather, Schmeather

OK, we are in Austin, TX and it is well into April. Then WHY is it SLEETING? And why does the weather thing say it is 30 degrees out? Brr. We had to go grocery shopping amidst all these little ice cubes falling from the sky. Then Lee and Beccano had to bring in all my lovely hanging and potted plants and cover up the other plants. This made Lee into his Fuzzy Headed Boyfriend mode. But, at least we will not lose all the plants we've been working so hard on!

Since it is all rainy and icky, I am making pea soup and homemade bread. We will also have a salad at dinner. Beccano made giant cookies (which had a hard time actually cooking). We got stuff to make lasagna for tomorrow, and a fruit cobbler for the baker boy to make. Good rainy day stuff, since it should be icky again tomorrow, and my sister is coming for one of her final visits before moving to Gainesville.

Everybody's going away. Soon it will just be me, Lee and the boys on holidays.

Another Crisis Bites the Dust

MMM

That's what Greg would say. The recruiter called this morning to offer me the position at a company whose name reminds one of those letters. It will be a challenge to do this, but I enjoy learning and especially enjoy not going into debt and being unemployed. This is a year contract, so my new goal is to find something permanent before it is up. Still have that ALE dream.

I am very relieved. And grateful for all the vibes, candles and such. It seems to have worked.

Next up: hair cut and coloring appointment! I can spend money again! Let's go buy a refrigerator! Then a week of relaxing, resting, and enjoying life rather than worrying.

Must find the next thing to worry about...JUST KIDDING

Happenin's and Transitions

The past couple of days have been a whirlwind of telephone calls, job interviews, and applying for jobs. I am not exaggerating when I say it is as much work to look for work as it is to work. Maybe more. I have a lot of interesting possibilities, and one that may very well work out soon--not the best one. However, this one is offering me more money than they originally said (good!). So, we'll see. Here are the possibilities:

1. Nonprofit organization software: the place I interviewed for 5 hours at on Monday. That is a REAL job, not too far away, and with nice folks. It has a little travel. You get to help people figure out their web needs and then let other people meet those. That is so good. I have no idea what it pays because I forgot to ask. Duh.



2. Short contract doing Wikis at a place only 5 minutes from the house. I like this one because it would last long enough for me to be eligible to go back to ALE and hang out with my beloved Lee again, if I desired. Or get a REAL job there. And this one does not sound too hard. I know my wikis. This just popped up yesterday.



3. The one that's a long-term contract doing training stuff is third. It looks like the hardest job, and the one I have the least confidence in. But I like the contracting agency staff.



4. There is another one that came up this week and I have interviewed for. It is located SO FAR from here that it is not funny. But it is working with interesting people and is a high-level web strategy position.

Lots to think about. I have interviewed at least once with everything but the wiki place. That should be soon, I think.

Transition

In other news, my baby is growing up. Younger Son is now Beccano in this blog, because he has his own blog now (only for people he KNOWS) and has joined Lee and me on our tarot blog. He draws cards many days, and wanted to record them. So now we all get to blog together. He is definitely mature enough to read the tarot blog--Lee and I don't go into anything he can't know about there, other than some mushiness. And Beccano knows we are mushy. I am proud of him. Today we are enjoying a day together because he had a fever last night. We all got some "gastrointestinal distress" yesterday.

Beccano is his Wookie name on Star Wars Galaxies. And part of his AIM screen name. I guess it is for him like Suna is for me--another part of himself.

We think the pollen is passing. I have never seen so much oak debris in my life. I keep sweeping up huge piles. And the grass is 3-4 inches tall in spots! Lee brought home a cool turtle planter he had at his old house, and we are going to put nice flowers in it shortly, in the front of the house. Really looking nice around here.

Becoming Modern

Look, it's Lee in a suit. It's a way smaller one than he has had in the past, so that is great. And it has a silk jacket, mmm, and a new tie, oooh. So I made him stand there so I could take a picture of him, looking like he wished he were elsewhere. Well, he was going to a funeral, and not a real fun one, so I can't blame him for looking a bit pained.

Poor Lee (poorly); I have been dragging him into the modern world these days. The kids are helping. Kynan insisted he get on AIM last night, so we could all type to each other while in the same room. Kynan has turned into Mr. IM lately--I can't believe how fast both the boys type. I hope I can get a job with IM allowed so I can say hi to the kids. Of course, no saying hi at Lee's employer.

And today I am encouraging him to get on yahoo so he can read church email lists. He sure hates doing that stuff. I hate having to encourage him do it. He doesn't like having to jump through hoops. I usually don't mind--do it once, and then you get years of email lists, I figure. But then, I also don't have someone out there snooping for my email address, interfering with my privacy and stuff.

Anyway, he looks cute in his suit.

Green, Green Grass

Look, look look. See, see see. See grass grow.

Grow grass, grow!

This is not a very exciting photo unless you are familiar with the vast expanse of bare dirt that is my back yard. Then, you are thrilled to see those li'l blades of grass shimmering in the sun! And that photo was taken on Sunday. Today you can REALLY see the grass, and Lee has filled in some gaps with more seed. It is conceivable that, soon, a person would consider us to have a "lawn."

Whoa.

I didn't spend all weekend watching grass grow. I taught a lot of knitting, went to church and learned interesting things about societies in an exercise we all did as a family. We were all members of different "cities" named after types of ice cream, and the "mayor" and "sherrif" wandered around doling out favors or not. And there was someone acting as permit person who showed favoritism too. It was supposed to be a microcosm of society and show how you start to act like how you are treated. It was pretty fun! We made our city a commune off the grid, but still could not avoid influences of others.

So, what else...last night was the annual birthday bash of my friend Austin. Not as many people as usual, but still a lot of music. I got to introduce Lee to a lot of my music friends, and was relieved to find out that some of the ones I really care about ARE my friends, and not just people who were nice to me because I was with Jeff. A couple of people made a big point of saying that they would like to see me more and do stuff with me and Lee. And more than one told me how wonderful I am for being so kind to Jeff. I told one woman that Jeff had been hard to live with and she said, "Oh, I KNOW, you are an ANGEL to have been to good to him for so long." So, that was nice.

Lee spent a lot of time out on the labyrinth. He sure loves it, and it had a big pool of moonlight right in the center. Beautiful.

Unfortunately, I ended up having two too many margaritas from the marvelous frozen margarita machine. Lee kept refilling. Then he made another one when we got home. It ended up being QUITE the fun evening, but this morning my head sure hurt, and I had job interview stuff to do!

And Job Interview Marathon went well. 4 hours of talking, but it ended up really, really good. I loved the place and the people seemed very nice as well. Tomorrow I have two--someone called in this morning having looked at my resume from last year and gave me a call--wow, someone actually DID call when something fitting my skills came up!

Pollen!

Here is a lovely picture of the "woodland" in our back yard. Note that the basis of this is a grove of escarpment live oak trees. And that they are very, very greenon the ends. That is because they are abloom, and when they are blooming they create extremely copious amounts of pollen. Today it is breezy, and you can see what looks like smoke coming from the trees whenever there is a gust.

(In the foreground you can see the absence of grass that was caused by how thick the trees used to be--that's where we planted grass seed, though much of it washed away in the flood day before yesterday. But some remained, so maybe we will have grass this year!)

This is the time of year in Austin when it is really futile to wash a car. In ten minutes it will become greenish yellow again, so why bother? Already the gazing balls and gnomes are yellow, though they are too far off to really see.

I am very, very proud of how the woodland looks right now. The understory trees are budding out, the inland sea oats are fairly high already, the wandering jew is poked out and turning purple, and the false indigo is nodding all over the places it has naturalized. What you do not see are blackberry vines, Virginia creeper or briars, because I have murderized them all, other than two decorative creepers I have graciously allowed to go up the oaks until I pull them down before they bloom. You will, perhaps, spot a grape vine, but I assure you I murderized it, too. Unfortunately, it is trying to reproduce, so I will have to take RoundUp to it once there are leaves. I have been trying to get rid of that vine for ten years now. Persistent.

Also invisible in the photo, but definitely present, are tree worms (don't know what they really are called). These are the inchworm-like insects that hatch from oak galls, then hang on a delicate thread, as they wend their way to the ground (where I hope the 8 zillion blue jays will eat them). These always appear right around the time of my friend Austin's birthday bash, making sitting under the trees at the church and jamming less than pleasant. You always have to be checking for worms. If you sit very quietly at this time of year you can actually hear them landing. Ick. Sounds like rain. Yuck.


On a happier note, I am also sharing a picture of the Younger Boy, to prove he is also cute. Here he is wearing the hat his dad got him on Ebay from the Ukraine (wow, that person had great handwriting, judging from how well the package was addressed). Not sure what the fascination with Russia is, but he also got "learn Russian" DVDs. He's practicing--maybe eventually he can talk to Stephanie W.

But look how manly he has become at almost 14. And look at that skin! What a complexion! This picture was taken last week, before the oaks had budded out and after they lost all their leaves (yes, live oaks shed, in the spring).

I hope this will post, since an Internet glitch killed my first draft of this, and something Jeff was writing, too.

Good Attitude Bonus Day

I was going to put a lot of bird pix in here, since I have watched birds a lot today, but you can just imagine a female red breasted woodpecker and a Carolina wren in your own mind, OK? It WAS neat to see a woodpecker on my tree--I have not seen many around here.

What you do see is the Older Boy after his "bud" who is "a girl, Mom!" straightened it. Look how shiny it came out! Everyone says he looks "emo" in the picture. I think he looks like he stepped out of an anime comic. In any case, what a cutie.

I am enjoying my little "vacation" fairly well. I got two web sites all caught up and did my taxes today. My good attitude is paying off, I think, because I got a nice refund, even after paying self-employment tax on all my knitting teaching. It will get us through another unemployment week! Plus, lo and behold, I had misplaced an envelope containing a $600 check for escrow overpayment, and I found it during tax prep time. WOO! Another little cushion for the upcoming drought. Every little bit helps!

And speaking of that drought, not only do I have one interview next week, but I have two now! A local company that does software for nonprofits has me scheduled for next Monday! It's a place I would really like to work, and would be an easy commute to visit Lee for lunch (a bonus). So, that has made me extra hopeful. Glad I lit my "trabajo" candle for a while! So, I can see that by remaining calm and thinking positively, things have slowly begun to show improvement signs. Rockin'.

I am a bit worried about Younger Boy. He is having trouble sleeping. Otherwise, things are really good. It stopped raining and I am making bread. Last night, Younger Son and I made banana bread, too. It is such fun cooking together!

Old Blog News

Still working hard at adding posts from my old blog to this one. I also changed the title of this one back to "What, Suna's Not Knitting," which was the old title. The other one is now "Suna's Old Blog," and it will go away once I have all the posts transferred older. I need to warn you that on occasion, I will forget to post-date an old post and it will end up looking new. Let me know if you see any of those!