Petunia rambles on and on….

The Year of the Sheep is something a knitter/spinner should celebrate – and I’ve already got enough yarn and fiber here to do a credible job at that. So much so that it continues to be a storage issue. I have to knit more/faster, spin more, and buy less. I hope this doesn’t have an effect on the world’s economic situation. Guess that’s my first resolution for the new year.

Another is to continue with the Quit Smoking initiative we’re doing now. I know – I did this before – and was off the damn things for 5 1/2 years. I can come up with a few “reasons/excuses” as to why I relapsed (husband still smoking, job stress, trying to “shame” him into quitting) the bottom line is that it was my own stupid choice. I can’t blame Himself, but he is damn stubborn, and it’s taken me this long to convince him that I need to quit again, he needs to quit, for health reasons, for financial reasons. As we approach retirement years, I don’t want to drag this expense into a reduced income. And I knew I’d have a better chance of permanently quitting if we both did it together. It required doctor appointments for both of us to get the medication that I used last time, and effective November 11, Veteran’s Day here, we are both smoke-free. We’re still on the meds, and our doctor recommends staying on them for at least 3 months, perhaps longer. Fortunately, our insurance is covering the entire cost!

The savings will be great, when they finally hit my checkbook – oh, we’re not buying cigarettes anymore, and that expense is out of the budget, but I put a few things onto my credit card, and first, the saved funds go to pay that off.  We had a trip south to see daughter and family in August, had a “tire incident” on the way home (while doing 75 mph on I-95) which required buying a used tire in Someplace, South Carolina, and a new set of 4 very shortly after arriving safely home. Then Himself’s truck had a tire with an ugly bulge, and we replaced all of his tires. Then the holiday spending.    And as a holiday gift, he bought me a Nikon! I chose the D5300 model, and of course, it’s red!

It came with an 18-55mm lens, and I added a 55-300mm, a battery pack which carries an extra charged battery and also is designed to give me another shutter button for taking pictures in “portrait” aspect. Gave it a workout with the kids/grandchildren here at Christmas, and when we took the twins to a museum a few days later. I’m sure I’ll be using it even more when the weather warms – in the meantime, I’m learning, playing with the controls, checking out all it can do.

Any other resolutions??  Yeah, a few are wandering about in my head. Things to do here at home, things to make our life better. Should blog more, but I make no promises.

I read the first book, Outlander, shortly after it was published in 1991, and anxiously awaited each successive book Diana Gabaldon wrote.  Must admit that while I had a new one in progress, not much got done around the house.  Read the first six books as they came out – but by then I was doing so much craft work, knitting and spinning. I bought #7, but am ashamed to say that I didn’t immediately sit down and read it. And there were a lot of things going on in my life! When I knew that #8 was coming out this past June, well, it had been so many years since I read the first one – and there was that one unread —  so after Christmas, I started re-reading the whole series from the beginning. For those who aren’t fans, these are big books, thick books, big stories. I wanted to refresh my mind on the older ones and read #7 before the most recent one came out. Life being what it is, I was still in #7 when Written in My Own Heart’s Blood was released. I’m reading it now.

Last night, STARZ released the first episode of the series they made.  As Husband also read the first few books, we watched it together – and both thought they did a fabulous job bringing this book to the screen – well, we’re sure the initial show was excellent!! My DVR is already programmed to record the entire series.

If there’s anybody left on the planet that hasn’t read this series, I suggest you start now – you have some catching up to do.

Getting ready for a trip Husband and I are going to take – which means I’m sitting on my arse, thinking of all the stuff that needs to be gathered, packed up and hopefully, gotten into my car before we leave. Himself never lets me forget the time we went camping up in central PA and I didn’t bring out my suitcase until after he assumed all our gear was in the back of my old green Jeep (Oh, Toad, I still miss you). We did not discover the error until after we arrived, and still argue about debate whose fault it was. Having this in my past, getting ready to leave for any destination further away than Wal-Mart makes me nervous! I know it’s a given that I will forget at least 2-3 things; the only thing up in the air now is what those items will be. My medications? Gifts we’ve bought? Cameras? Purse with money, credit cards, driver’s license inside? Not taking a spinning wheel on this trip and Husband was thrilled with that – too many small fingers where we’re going. However, before he really got to celebrate the fact that he wouldn’t have to deal with my small wheel that only weighs about 15 lbs, daughter asks us to bring down the cradle. Hand-made (by my older brother when I was pregnant in 1979), solid mahogany, large, heavy. I love it, but clearly have no need of it anymore, and more of an issue, really don’t have the room here. She has more space, and did take many a nap in it herself. I’m sure Himself won’t forget his golf clubs, regardless of how much space they take.

Daughter, I will be bringing a new bathing suit, exchanged after I bought that first one, that I somehow got into, but couldn’t get out of without assistance. Could barely move or breathe until Himself came home, 3 hours later, and extricated me.  Daughter suggested scissors, made references to sausage casings, but swore she wasn’t laughing. I love her to the moon and back, but I think she was lying about that. I’m really glad I didn’t try it on in the store.

This post will really “ramble” because I’m too tired to think coherently. Fine.

My husband dislikes having to be at work at 7:00 am – well, really, he dislikes getting up at 5:30 in the morning especially when he realizes that he is not safe holding anything sharp near his throat at that hour, but is required to shave. He also has a habit of  leaping out of bed immediately as the alarm clock starts to ring. Now I’m not saying he is wide-awake and alert, but he’s on his feet quickly and moving. Always. During the night, he got up to “use the facility” and for reasons unknown, thought the alarm had gone off. He proceeded out to the kitchen and hit the button to start the coffee pot which is always set up the night before as neither one of us is capable of doing more than pushing the button in the morning. He noticed, and thought it was rather odd, that both the clock on the stove and the microwave said 1:12 am, but apparently did not have the sense to look out the damn window and see that it was still the dead of night. He wondered if there had been a power failure while we slept and did not draw the obvious conclusion that a power failure would have also affected the electric clock on his night table. Fortunately, he realized that he is a moron the error of his ways before an entire pot was brewed, shut it off and came back to bed. He went through this whole scenario again at 5:30. Not sure what woke me up. Was it his mumbling and bumbling about, or the dog barking to be let outside? I finally gave up flopping around in the bed like a fish out of water, and got up shortly after. So my day off, my day when I can sleep in, started about 5:45. I poured myself a cup of coffee, but as it’s only a 12-cup pot, there was not enough there to really make this all better.

There’s only one thing good about mornings, aside from the coffee.

I remembered to put the laundry, that I left untended last night, into the dryer.

At one point this morning, I thought to clean myself up and change my clothes to go to Wal-Mart!

I have already shredded enough documents this morning to fill the shredder. I need to get into the habit of doing this on a daily basis. I know that. I’ve cleared a good amount of clutter off the table.

One night this week, I went to Kohl’s with the sole intent of picking up a nice summer-y purse, to take with  me on our up-coming trip. I assumed they would all be on sale this time of year, and was correct. I swear that was the only reason that I went in there. As usual, it was not the only item I carried out of the store. This happens a lot in the grocery store, too. Can’t go in there and only buy the gallon of milk that I need.  Found 2 nice summer tops to add to my over-flowing collection. I can not walk past interesting prints.

And there was the one with black, white and a bright pink that leaped into the damn cart. And the bright pink cotton knit dress. And the bathing suit. And the two toys for small children. And I remembered to get a purse. And they were ALL on sale!

In my spare time, when I’m not out spending money that should be left in the bank, I’m knitting a pattern called Allegro, a top-down sweater. Instead of the usual waistline shaping decreases that I mis-calculate every time, it has an interesting, small cabling motif, center-back, that pulls that area in a bit. I do like the “all in one piece” construction, as I hate seaming; the down-side, this time of year, is that a lot of wool is in my lap while I work on it. Mostly, it’s miles of stockinette, mind-less, which is relaxing.

When I remember the rest of the stuff I meant to post today, well, I’ll just write another post.