Depressed

I'm in the throes of a pretty severe depression these days so I've been doing little but knitting. Money is too tight for me to be able to afford the meds I need to treat the depression, so for now I'm just having to muddle through. M doesn't understand it, of course. And I am glad, in a way... the only way he could understand it is if he had gone through it himself. And I wouldn't wish clinical depression on anyone. Even myself. And these days I seem to hate myself. 

 Anyway, sorry for the extended absence here, I will attempt to write more frequently.  I'm working diligently on  my Christmas knitting. I need 6 pieces for females in my family and 5 for men. Plus stuff for a baby boy. Thus far I have an almost finished baby blanket, 2 hat and scarf/wrap sets for women, a hood for a man, and a scarf-in-progress for a man. I have most if not all of the yarn I'll need for these projects and I'm a little excited about giving my family things I've made. This is my first Christmas to attempt making things for everyone, so I'm also a little apprehensive.  We'll see how it goes.

Time off

M is taking Thursday and Friday off, so since it's a 3 day weekend we'll have 5 whole days of togetherness. I don't think he realizes how much more work he makes for me by staying home.

We had the boys this past weekend and it was NOT fun. The elder boy has a very distinct and unpleasant personality that I just can't stand. And the younger boy is becoming more like his brother. Admittedly I am not particularly fond of children in general, but with these two it's not just because they are kids, I dislike them as people. They are whiny, disrespectful, lazy and selfish. And they cry if they don't get their way.

The knitting is going well, although I'm not really doing much designing. I'm nearly finished with Tubey . And I'm planning to start on my Christmas knitting after that is complete. I just need a few more inches and then, finally, my first sweater will be complete. I'm also working on a capelet for myself, but that is a far more complex knit and will take some time.

My best friend's birthday is coming up at the end of the week and I need to finish several thinks I've been working on for him so I can get it all in the mail. I miss him so.

Finishing a Hat, Part 2

Here is my Super Summer Sun Hat:
































Now I am working on Tubey from Knitty.com for M's best friend's wife. It's my first sweater and it's going pretty quickly. I just hope she likes it. The yarn is Mission Falls 1824 Cotton that I received for winning the Crazy Aunt Purl contest last year. So far it's going well and much faster than anticipated, even though I've made a few changes and am having to rework the stripes to fit the amounts of each shade of yarn that I have.

My niece's visit was wonderful. She has become such an interesting and well grounded person. I do love her very much.

I've been nostalgic a lot of the time lately and I have a tentative project in mind that melds nicely with nostalgia, so hopefully it will bear fruit. If so, you'll see it here.

Oh, and I'm trying to work my sparse Super Summer Sun Hat notes into a pattern/tutorial that will also be posted here as soon as it's in a form anyone other than me can make use of.

Finishing a hat

I finished my summer hat last night and I love it! I hope to post pictures and a vague pattern/tutorial soon, so be expecting that. And I have much to say about my niece's visit. For now, though, I need to run to the grocery store before the temperature rises above 100*.

My niece

My darling niece is staying with us for a few days and it is so much fun to have her around! She is my brother's daughter and she is 16, but not annoying like most teenagers are. I credit my mother with making her a well grounded person. She's a bit strange, too, which means she and I get along quite well. And by staying here she has a chance for a little privacy and quiet, which she doesn't get much of at home with her insane, evil father and her two very loud younger brothers.

Yesterday we went out to try to find some school clothes for her. Like me, she is not a little wisp of a thing so attractive clothes can be hard to find. I love that she has her own sense of style and that she is confident enough to express herself with her fashion choices. She didn't find much that she liked, so tonight we will be continuing our quest with a trip to Hot Topic. It's where she wants to go, so that is where we will go, but not until tonight when it is a bit cooler and we can use M's car that I don't fear will overheat or stall if I run the AC. In temperatures over 100*, AC is more than a convenience to those of us who are prone to heat exhaustion.

It is just really nice to have her here. See? I'm not all evil where minors are concerned. Just most of them. And all of them until they are old enough to be somewhat self-sufficient and think past the next few minutes. But my niece is cool. She's at that point where she's not a kid anymore, but she's not quite an adult yet, either; so many her age get lost without a real sense of who they are, but Ash seems to know herself pretty well and she's seen enough crazy and unpleasant that she may be able to avoid most of it. She seems pretty mature to me, but not like she's in any rush to be a grown up. Really, she's pretty amazing to me and I love her very much.

Here's a random pic from the ice cream contest we went to a few weeks back. It's a dog with his matching human.


And here are a couple videos of Cat. Because she would smother me in my sleep if she saw that I had posted a dog picture and nothing of her. (grr... stupid thing doesn't want to finish processing. I may have to try again later.)

So many things...

So many things just don't make sense to me these days and it really is affecting me on a deeper level than eve before.
I hate, hate, HATE what the current administration has done to this country. George W. Bush and his cronies have made so much of the world hate us, and I can't disagree with them. The man is an imbecile at best and more likely downright evil. His stunt at the recent G8 meeting left me mortified; sadly, it is only a typical sampling of the dumbing down of our nation. People were so incensed that Clinton had sex and lied about it. Sex, whether in or out of his marriage, is not any of our business. This man, however, has gotten thousands of people killed and lied about it. Why hasn't he been impeached??? Gaaah! It makes me so very angry I can hardly stand it.

There is much more I have to say about this and I definitely will, but M just called and is on his way home, so I'll postpone the rest of my rant. (Oh, and the cookies are done and are delish! I use this recipe, but a TBL instead of a TSP of vanilla.)

Buddhism and a day in the kitchen

Today is a kitchen day, but things are not going so well. My tea ball broke and spilled tea all over the floor. I buy tea bags, but make my own blend of different kinds of tea. It's the best iced tea I've ever tasted, so I'm sticking with it. For a gallon, I use 2 regular family sized Luzianne or Lipton type tea bags, three of the smaller green tea bags and three of the Earl Grey green tea. I've mixed all of these together and now just use 2 TBS of the mixture in a coffee filter inside a large tea ball. I also sweeten it with stevia. Good stuff, and so much better for me than the Diet Coke.
I bought a bunch of mushrooms recently because they were waaay on sale, but they are so much more than I can use before they go bad, so I combined them with some yogurt, spinach, garlic and dill and threw it all in a blender. It's all frozen now, but the little sampling I had of it before freezing was pretty tasty and zesty. I think that it will be a nice soup stock for making other things.
I need to get back to the kitchen to make some cookies. I promised M some tollhouse cookies when he gets home and he does love it when I spoil him. Heh... I would too. I do miss being spoiled. He is a sweet man, but he's not the most thoughtful guy I've ever known.

I'm considering Buddhism as a way of life. It seems to fit the way I view the universe far more than Christianity never has done. It just feels right. We'll see how that develops.

*sigh* must return to kitchen and make cookies now, and clean up the spilled tea. Oh, and laundry MUST be done today. I really don't mind doing any of that once I get started, but the motivation is so frequently lacking.

One last note for today: I am now (proudly) listed as a designer on Ravelry! I debate with myself whether or not I am truly worthy of the title, but when I saw that one of my patterns from a few years ago was already up on Rav and had someone making it, well, might as well make the leap. I will try to take better notes when coming up with patterns so that I can put them out in case anyone else wants to make them, but I am lazy and a sloppy note taker.

Okay, cookie time. :) Nothing friendlier than a house smelling of freshly baked cookies.