Roll with it, baby.

It was bound to happen. I knew it would some day.  I’d sit down to post to the blog and I’d have no freaking idea what to write about.

That’s not a dream or a nightmare. That’s my reality in this moment, sitting here in my jammies and my wool socks and my ugly but warm slippers waiting for my muse to come along. Maybe she had a late night out last night like I did and found herself overserved. How that can happen with one beer and a few cookies is a mystery, but that combination of alcohol and sugar seems to be a deadly one for me. It could be it is for my muse, too. I don’t blame her for going out and blowing off a little steam. Poor thing, she’s got me to deal with, and a night out once in a while does her good. It’s the morning after when we both suffer.

The notion of having a muse is a curious one. I’d never really considered that there might be one for me until I started up the blog. A couple people have asked me how I do the blog entries, what my process is and if I plan things out.  I laugh. Process? Planning? For serious? I sit down, wait for my muse to show up, and then I write. That’s it. Aside from the first few halting and painfully awkward posts, nothing has been planned. Wednesdays and Fridays have a theme, of course, but I still don’t have any clue what I’m going to post until I open up the template to do the post. It’s all very seat-of-the-pants, and if that shows, well, sorry, but that’s the way it is.

Sometimes I think I have a specific topic to write about, but that usually gets shot right out of the water. I’m okay with that. It seems a fair and accurate reflection of life–you think it’s one thing, but it turns out to be another, and you can either fight it or you can just roll with it, baby.

I’ve sometimes tried to plan it all out in my life, to control and direct and make it how I thought it should be. Disaster ensues. The best laid plans of mice and Kymm, doncha know. I do plan things out on a small scale and that seems to work okay, but for the big issues? Better for me to just roll with it. I’ll let my muse handle the details.

 

Freeplay Friday

It has been an extraordinarily warm winter here. There has been little snow–we may have gotten our first measurable snowfall overnight, which looks like a whopping half inch or so–and until the last couple of days, there haven’t been single-digit daytime temperatures. Spoiled? A little. I’ll admit that I’ve been whining a little about the cold for a day or two, though I’ve found it’s a bit warmer if you open up the registers and let the heat come in. Silly me. I’ll also admit that this short-lived cold snap has me longing for a little of the heat of summer, for sunburns and sock tans and freckles. There may not be an app for that–although I’d bet there is–but I know there’s a song for that. Turn it up!

Thinking and hoping.

Someone once told me there’s a difference between dreaming and pretending, and he was right. There are also differences between wanting and needing, between planning and doing, thinking and hoping–you could spend hours coming up with opposing pairs.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about some things. A lot of things, as you may or may not have noticed. I think a lot. Too much, some would say, but if you’ve been reading me for a while, you know I’d tell you that thinking too much is just about always preferable to thinking too little.

Mostly, I’m a hardcore realist. Mostly. I see things pretty much as they are and deal with them accordingly. I understand that there are a lot of things I simply can’t change and so I don’t fuss about them too much. Others, I fuss over too much and to no effect, but a girl’s got to have a hobby and that’s one of mine.

So, I’ve been thinking about this one thing every day lately–I can’t tell you what, but it’s something that matters a great deal to me–and while I think it’ll never happen, I still hope that it will.

That seems oxymoronic and maybe it is. I think it is, but I also think that hoping is just about the one thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. I hope every day will be better than the one before. There are steps I can take to ensure that might happen, of course, but then life is such a random thing there’s no guarantee. But I can hope and plan and do and sometimes it all works out, and even if it doesn’t, I still have hope for tomorrow.

Some hopes are just silly and unrealistic. I hope that someone will discover this blog, exclaim “That girl can write!” and then throw some money at me to do just that. There’ll be products and a book–a bestseller, ‘natch–then a movie in which Meryl Streep will play me, because we look so darn much alike, and it’ll be an instant classic and I’ll make truckloads of money and be able to retire and set up my charitable trusts and travel and goof off and do all the things I dream of and it’ll be awesome.

I hope I’ll wake up someday and my excess weight will be gone–poof!–just like that. I also hope my sugar cravings will just magically disappear and I’ll start loving my veggies and oatmeal and other foods that are good for me and I’ll just LOVE sweating and exercise and I’ll have an active and healthful lifestyle. Also, my developing wrinkles will go away and take my lower abdomen pooch with them. Okay, so I have a Buddha belly. That could go. It could happen.

I hope I’ll start loving my work and do it because it’s the BEST! TIME! EVER! and not because it’s a sad and evil necessity.

So there are silly hopes and then there are ones that have a better chance of coming to fruition. I hope that one day I’ll live out my dream of The Big Backyard, in which I buy a small RV and just go wherever the road and my whims take me, where I live in a small space but have the whole world spreading out before me as the biggest and best backyard ever and adventure awaits around every turn, or every other or so. Too many adventures would not be so good.

I hope, when I pick up my needles to do some charity knitting, that the hat I make will warm someone, inside and out, and that my small effort and the simple act of knitting will do some good in the world. I hope my tiny monetary contributions to the organizations I support will grow and prosper and heal someone somewhere.

I hope.

I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

Lyrical Wednesday

A little something different for Lyrical Wednesday, prompted by a brief encounter with someone who could take a few lessons in deportment. Also, because mean people suck.

 

 

Full of it

This isn’t the post I’d had planned for today, but that’s okay, this veering off in a different direction. It’s funny how people show up, seemingly from out of nowhere, just when you need them, and that happened this morning when I had a chat with someone from my past. This someone has been absent for a couple of years or more and just showed up again, apparently thinking we’d just pick up where we left off and it’d all be happy-happy and wonderful.

You know how some people are just so full of crap that they leave a trail of brown stuff behind them? That’s this guy. Full of it. I used to enjoy his talent for bold and often amusing lies, but today–well, they were just wearisome. Stinky and unpleasant and so very well-timed.

I say that because I’m coming to the part of the Sassback program where I really badly need to do some mental and spiritual de-crapping. I have to get real about things, be brutally honest with myself, and stare into the maw that holds all the nasty stuff I don’t want to see, admit, own, or deal with. I’ve been skirting around my own bold lies and self-deceit and trails of brown stuff long enough, and that chat this morning brought a few things front and center. It’s time to do something about them.

That’s a tall order for anyone, to deal with the deeply unpleasant,  and I surely can’t tackle it all at once. I can, however,  acknowledge and begin to work through things as they present themselves. Sure, it’s a series of dirty jobs, but there literally is no one else to do it.  I don’t want to, but I don’t want to stay where I am, either, so it’s time to roll up my sleeves and get down to it.

Without going into too much detail or dragging others into this, what it boils down to is that I’m feeling very much a fraud these days. I’ve been lying to myself about some behaviors and some destructive patterns that have harmed me as well as others. At the worst, I’ve tried to make it out that others have been as much to blame, if not more, in certain situations than I have, and while it does take two to tango, it’s both revisionist and a big fat lie to pile my crap on someone else.

I know I can’t control other people and their behavior. I can control mine, however, and if I continue to repeat the destructive behaviors that have become habitual, and that have caused so much damage in relationships that have had meaning, I will have no one to blame but myself. I have no one now but myself to blame for my actions. Other people will need to deal with theirs, or not–I can’t do anything about that. But I can do something about mine.

I know people will say I’m being too hard on myself. No, not really. I’m just getting real about things. There comes a time when, if change and growth are to occur, one has to stop lying to oneself, cut the crap, and be honest about the way things are, and have been, and could be. I’m moving into that time. I feel it. I need it.

I don’t think I’ll be posting much, if anything more, about this process. This is something for my private journal, as it’s all too personal and names will have to be named, but I’m throwing it out here now as an act of intention and accountability. I’m cutting the crap, starting today.

Wish me luck.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I can think of nothing more fitting than Dr. King’s own eloquence on this day set aside to honor his birth. Let freedom ring.

Stash

The Great De-crapping of 2012 includes getting real about how much stuff I have. This can sometimes be kind of horrifying for someone who has delusions of living a simpler, less burdened life, but it’s got to be done if I’m to move ahead into the kind of life I imagine. I’m not anti-stuff, but there is such a thing as enough, as well as such a thing as too much. When someone starts feeling as I do, overwhelmed and burdened by things, that’s too much.

I like to kid myself about the amount of yarn I have but it’s a crap ton, which is, as you may or may not know, the equivalent of four shitloads. Don’t laugh–this is a recognized unit of measure, not unlike other lesser known units of measure, such as the Smoot or the Standard Bender Unit, which may not be in common use,  but which are still valid.

So anyway–this crap ton of yarn I have. Well. I like to keep it in several locations, thereby fooling myself into thinking I have considerably less than I actually do. This strategy works amazingly well until I have a fit of clearing out and I get it all together. As George Takei would say, Ohhhh myyyyy.

The stash. Oh dear.

Granted, my stash is puny compared to some, but I feel just a tad queasy looking at this. That’s a lot of yarn, and I’m a pathetically slow knitter, so I have to ask: why do I need all of this?

The upside is that I gave away two small bags of yarn yesterday. The grocery bags in the foreground are filled with yarn to be given away as well, and the fabric bags, basket, and turquoise craft tub hold in-progress or charity knitting supplies. But the crock and pink tub? Nothin’ but stash, and it’ll grow some tomorrow when I pick up my KnitPicks order. In addition to that, I’m slowly gathering yarns for a long-term project. Oh dear oh dear.

But–I’d like to see this pile diminished by years’ end, and so, I’m challenging myself to knit from my stash this year. I’ll allow myself to purchase the odd orphaned skein of heathered Cascade 220 for that planned long-term project, but I’m going to do my best to knit everything else from my stash. Think I’ll make it?

Oh, and if I asked you for your yarn leftovers? Ummm, maybe I’ll still take them. Maybe. A girl needs a little stash once in a while.

 

 

Out of the closet

Got your attention, didn’t I?

One morning this past week, I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. I flopped around in bed for a while, trying to decide if I should get up and do something or not when my mind landed on The Great De-crapping of 2012 and specifically on my closet.

It was messy. I seriously considered getting up and cleaning it before reason took me by the hand and I fell back to sleep, but I put it higher up on the list of de-crapping priorities and got to it one day this week. I know you want to see my closet, so there are pics. Be still, your heart.

Before. Yikes. The junk in the foreground is knitting stuff.

Pretty bad, eh? I thought so, too. I’ll confess I didn’t completely empty it out, but everything on the floor and shelf did come out. I went through all of the clothes and shoes and either bagged them to go to the Goodwill or to toss. The shoes were bad shape and I wouldn’t foist those off on anyone else, so they went in the trash. Still needing a good sorting-out are the three-drawer rolly cart behind the Christmas gift bag and the turquoise craft containers. I don’t have a dresser or chest of drawers so my unders are in the rolly cart. Craft and knitting things are in the other containers. Hanging off to the right of the closet are knitting project bags and empty bags and such. I’m a bag ho, but I can think of worse things to be.

All that junk out of the closet was kind of overwhelming but I womaned up and persevered.

Midstream. Yes, those are booze bottles, and yes, I keep them in the closet. Doesn't everyone?

I vacuumed the floor and wiped off the shelf before deciding what to replace and where. I also rearranged the clothes so what I’m wearing now is front and center. Some of the stuff on the floor was rearranged in a more convenient fashion and the shelf got a tidy up as well. My vintage Batman pillow, along with Raggedy Andy and Ducky, make a bright spot on the shelf. The big yellow thing on the right side of the shelf is a scratchy old acrylic afghan that I’ll never part with. That baby is warm! On top of it is a hand-pieced, machine-quilted coverlet that I scored at the Sally Ann for a mere $2.99.

Ahh. Better.

If you look closely, you’ll see the hangers are all wrong way ’round. As I remove items to wear, I’ll turn the hangers back around the right way and anything still hanging backwards next January will be given away. I’m going to be ruthless about it–no exceptions. This will, I hope, be incentive to get rid of some of my excess weight so I can wear a few special things in there. I’m not overly fond of clothes, but I have a few pieces that made me feel cute and sassy once upon a time and it’d be swell to feel that way again. Shortie blue jacket, you will shine again! I might add a little color at some point, too–it could be that I have too many blues, blacks, greens, and purples.

I’m counting the closet de-crapping as a success.

So–what’s in your closet?

 

 

 

 

Freeplay Friday

George Strait. King George, as he’s known in the country music world. He’s had an incredible run–on the charts since 1981 with a record-breaking number of chart-topping hits–58 as of the close of 2011.

I like him.

I like this song.

 

Thrifty

If you know me even a little, you know I’m not the spendy type. I like saving money–there’s a satisfaction in looking at my bank account and seeing the numbers add up, even given the pittance I earn in interest. Disinterest is more like it, but it’s still money I didn’t work for, so I’ll take it.

I’ve long thought that everyone should have some money no one else really knows about, just in case, and there’s satisfaction in having that money as well. Call it my emergency fund, my escape fund, my sunny day fund–it’s there, and while it’s not a huge sum, I could still likely live off of it for quite some time. That’s nice to know. Just in case.

I’ve tried all kinds of budgets and money tracking schemes in order to save up some cash, and while each has some merit or other, I’ve found for me, the best method is just about the simplest. I don’t work out a monthly budget, allocating so much for various areas of spending, I don’t use the envelope method, I don’t use a percentage system.

What I do is so simple it’s kind of hard to believe it works, but it does for me. Along with an estimated monthly pay-out for the usual bills–which is pretty darn accurate–I give myself a monthly cash allowance and everything else–groceries, personal care items, whatever the cat needs, entertainment–it all comes out of the great communal pot and once it’s gone, it’s gone. The one exception for January, February, and March is gas; my credit card company is currently offering 5% back on gas purchases and that’s a tidy way of building up my cash back bonus. I also keep track of credit card purchases but those are severely limited. My current circumstances dictate a pretty small monthly allowance, but I’ve found that there’s a whole lot that I really don’t need, and I don’t miss it at all.

Small as my allowance is, I usually end the month with some cash still in hand. How? Simple–I track my spending. Every dime, nickel, penny I spend is accounted for. This gives me an easy way to see where the money is going, where I may have been overspending, and ways to continue trimming back.

I have the occasional splurge. A little treat is nice now and then, and I have a fund set up just for those kinds of buys. Guilt-free indulgence is a good thing. But so is being thrifty.