The Loopy Swap project is DONE. The only thing left is washing and blocking! Hurrah! I worked like mad tonight to finish it, and have just a tiny bit of yarn left - perhaps enough for a wee tiny sock or a miniature sweater. Maybe two wee tiny socks - one for pal, one for me?

We’ll see. At any rate, I’m quite happy to just have the swap project off the needles so I can work on something else!

All things evolve - landscapes, plants, animals, human emotions, and spiritualities. In the last four years, I’ve undergone tremendous changes across the board. From city to rural, from Christian to pagan, from doubt and depression to contentment and confidence, and from debt to comfort.

Four years ago, at the beginning of summer 2004, I sat alone in an expensive, soon-to-be-stifling-hot apartment, and searched endlessly for a job in an economy that had just flushed the toilet. I was miserable - hungry, depressed, alone, broke, and struggling with the faith I’d lost several years before. I had no support - my family was out of sight and out of mine, my best friend had moved away months before and refused to so much as drop a postcard with her phone number on it in the mail, my other closest friend was caught up deep in drama with new roommates, and though I lived in a decent sized city, I was too damned shy, miserable, and out of gas to meet anyone new.

My faith in the Christian God had long since abandoned me - or perhaps I had abandoned it. Truthfully, I could no longer reconcile the ‘truths’ of the Bible with either science or my own conscience. It had been a long dark path - five years or more - and it was long past time for God to shine some light on my struggles, to aid me, to guide me, but that light never came.

Four years ago, I was bitter at the world, and the people in it. Everything had changed in the years before. I had changed. My eyes had been opened to worlds and faiths and ideas and ideologies far removed from the safe, comfortable, conservative Christian upbringing I’d been raised in. I had attended one of the most liberal, hippie colleges in the United States - and what an education. My entire world was changed as I met person upon person who didn’t follow the ‘traditional’ path through life.

I met a lovely lesbian Wiccan who worshipped Hera - oh, the shock! Did she really worship some ancient Greek goddess? - and an atheist who “loved Christians” because they were generous at their campus meetings with ice cream and pot lucks. I met women who didn’t shave their legs - or their pits! - and men who wore dresses. I met vegans and vegetarians and people who thought McDonalds was Seriously Evil. I met protesters and Bush-Haters and gay rights activists and feminazis who thought men were Serious Evil. I met artists and writers and singers and poets.

My worldview was forever changed. My world was forever changed just for being there. I never graduated, and I wasn’t the best student by far - but the education I got about life was worth every penny I paid (and every penny I’m still paying).

But four years ago, I was still in the midst of all this change - I was still reeling from it, still fitting the pieces I’d gathered together, still struggling to decide who I was, and what I wanted to become, and what it all meant. What was life about? What was the point of it all? What did I believe, and who the hell should I vote for come November, anyway?

Four years ago, I started proceedings for a divorce. Not a marital divorce, but a spiritual one. Slowly, I was cutting myself away from the trappings of my old beliefs and habits and anxieties, shedding my old skin to make room for new. It started with intolerance, and the accepting of a new code of ethics that begins with: If it harms none, do what you will. This is, granted, a rather Wiccan statement, but it’s a central truth, the core of my beliefs. If it hurts no one, it’s okay. As for the rest - things that may cause harm, things that could hurt - there are other rules, other shades of circumstance and morality to weigh before you make decisions about them. But if it hurts no one, why get worked up? If it hurts no one, it should be free and unrestricted.

With that new code in place, and other personal ethics becoming clearer every day the more I read and thought and interacted with people, the closer I came to understanding myself. And the closer I came to understanding who I was, the more I understood where I wanted to go, and what I wanted to do, and what my life - what life in general - was about. And the more I understood that, the more comfortable I became. Depression and angst began to fall away. Self-reliance and confidence rose. I began to live and let live. I stopped trying to change the people around me - and started to just live life… for me. Not for them. Not because of them. But for and because of me.

In four years, I’ve learned to take just about everything with a sprinkling or more of salt. I’ve learned to be a skeptic, to be critical, to be choosy about the things I let into my life. I’ve matured and learned so much… and yet, I’m still a babe in the cradle in this ancient universe. I’ve changed in almost every way, and I still have a long way to go.

In four years, I’ll be 30 years old. In four years, I’ll have evolved all over again - maybe into just an older and wiser version of the woman I am today, my ideas refined, my beliefs strengthened, my path in life clearer… or maybe I’ll have evolved into someone I wouldn’t recognize if I passed her on the street today. Who knows?

But it’ll be a fascinating journey, nonetheless.

I’ve been working for a month now (on and off) on a very special item (yes, a knitted one) for my Loopy Ewe Swap partner, and the end is at last in sight. To be honest, I haven’t heard from her in a while, and it worries me a bit - especially since she doesn’t have a blog and is only somewhat active on Ravelry. Hopefully, she’s doing fine! And hopefully, she loves her gift when she gets it! I know I love it!

Also, coming up on halfway through a Very Long Week at work. I’ve worked three 12-hour shifts in a row, and have two more to go before I go back to working regular 8-hour days. Yes, that’s right. Five 12-hour shifts in a row, and then I don’t even get any days off for another two days. And all this after getting only one day off before it began . That’s the day in which I spent doing laundry like mad, and making The Most Horrible Swedish Meatballs Ever, otherwise known as Swedish Allspice Balls, because that’s what they tasted like. Allspice - and lots of it. Gah. (It wasn’t my fault, to be fair - the recipe demanded that much allspice, and like an imbecile, I just didn’t question it.) So instead of eating tons of yummy meatballs all week while I have no time to cook, I’m eating Hamburger Freaking Helper, greasy potato chips, and bar pizza. Urgh. Not exactly food to fuel you for a week of hellish hours.

Luckily, all the tons of overtime should make up for it. Here’s hoping.

In the meantime, to kill sometime at work, when the hours get really really long, I’ve been hunting down podcasts and listening to them. So far, Faerie Knitting is my favorite. Go have yourself a little fairy tale now. Enjoy.

Once upon a time, a girl named Katia ran off to Albuquerque long ago, where the strange and mysterious people there did something she’d never particularly seen done in her neck of the woods: drank tea every morning.

By the time she left, one week later, Katia drank tea every day, too, having swiftly been addicted to this non-coffee caffeinated drink just like ‘that’.

So… I swapped some tea on Ravelry, and got a whole random assortment of teas I’d never before tried, but along with a few bags of one of my all-time favorites, Tazo Awake. Awake is a wonderful blend of black teas, strong and smoky and powerful enough to keep me going all night long, and what’s more, it comes in the most quaint little colorful red bags. It’s very nice.

But also, I got a whole variety of Stash teas, including Irish Breakfast (which I’m drinking tonight), English Breakfast, Double Chai Spice, Chai Spice (I drink this one a fair amount), Peach Black Tea, and some others which also look good! Also, I got some tea from SBS Teas - Cranberry Orange Spice, which sounds and smells intruiging. And some tea from Trader Joes, and a packet of rooibos from somewhere that starts with a K, but is eluding my mind. Lovely!

In return, I sent off a bunch of fun teas also, and some cute little stickers and chocolates, to a lovely lady up in Canada.

And now? Now I’ve joined an Iced Tea Summer Solstice Swap. Er. Or Summer Solstice Iced Tea Swap. Whatever. But it’s more tea to swap and enjoy, and this time, there’s GOODIES involved - like summer things, and yarn, because it’s Ravelry. Gotta love the yarn…

But for now? I’m off to Adagio, because I’m nearly out of one of my other super-favorite teas, strawberry black, and that just cannot be allowed. Again, if anyone wants a $5 off coupon to Adagio, and you don’t already have an account there, just let me know, and I can send you one! :)

It’s been for-ever, in a big way, since I’ve had any photos up, I thought I’d be generous with a few! Enjoy!

So I was going to put up a whole ton of photos here today (yesterday? It’s 5:22 a.m. - officially not the same today it was when I woke up, I suppose…) but guess who just didn’t have the motivation to do all that camera-work? Yup, that’s me.

So instead, you get to hear about the other things I’m up to in my life.

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far away… Wait, wrong script.

A long long time ago, like, say, four years ago, I used to have this awesome hobby of penpalling and swapping (things, in the mail) and postcard trading and other things. Then A came to town, and suddenly, I had a REAL LIVE FRIEND IN THE FLESH and I eventually abandoned all that other stuff. Well, that, and I got a full time job, working nights, and life just changed in general.

But I’ve done penpalling on and off for years… many years, and I missed it. So finally, I’m getting back into the swing of things. I posted a little ad on Ravelry (knitting forums, for those uncool people not in the know), and whammo, 5-6 people contacted me within two days. I rock, man. And so do they. :) So not only am I getting penpals? I’m getting KNITTING penpals. That is totally freaking awesome.

Still, I think penpalling with people you’ve met and converse with on the internet is going to be an interesting experience. A) everyone has blogs, and b) email and instant messaging and private messaging is quick and… instant. But there’s something about a handwritten letter on paper (or heck, even a typewritten letter on paper) sent through the mail that makes all the extra time and expense and wait worthwhile. It’ll be nice to expect things in the mail once in a while that aren’t bills, magazines, or packages I ordered myself.

This comes from Friday’s Feast:

Appetizer

When someone smiles at you, do you smile back? Yes, in general. Not always. Sometimes, I flat out ignore them, though, depending on how obnoxious they are, and how obnoxious I’m feeling.

Soup

Describe the flooring in your home. Do you have carpet, hardwood, vinyl, a mix? 100% carpet. Even the kitchen and bathrooms. Ewww. Shag carpet in the back bedroom. Flat industrial shit in the kitchen, hallways, dining room, one bathroom, and ‘front room’. Regular ugly stuff in the living room, master bedroom, and one bathroom. Gugh. Hate carpet. Hate. Especially all the ugly stuff I have. Puke yellow shag. Purple industrial. Pinkish beige regular stuff. Blech. My grandmother’s style sucks.

Salad

Write a sentence with only 5 words, but all of the words have to start with the first letter of your first name. … with K? Jesus. Kill me. Keep kamikaze kangaroos kissing kittens. Hey, give me a break, there’s only a handful of K-words in the entire English language!

Main Course

Do you know anyone whose life has been touched by adoption? Yep. I know a family who took in three foster kids and adopted them all. Along with their three biological children, they now have a family of six kids whose name all start with T, ages ranging from 26 to 6. (Maybe 5?) I was there for the formal adoption of one of those girls, and we went to the adoption party afterward. And also saw another little foster boy I babysat about to be adopted by a new family, too!

Dessert

Name 2 blue things. Uh, the sky. And water. I’m feeling nature-y today. Especially since it rained all day yesterday, which is awesome, because we’ve had like, NO MOISTURE WHATSOEVER this entire year. Nice! We needed the rain so bad!

1. Roomies leave their clothes all over the place, making you trip over them and hurry to remove underwear from the hallway before your local friendly deputy comes in to buy eggs.
2. Roomies want dinner. Now. But they don’t want to do dishes. Ever.
3. Roomies make you have to be quiiiiet while they sleep, even if that’s normally the time you’d vacuum and turn the music up loud and the lights down low and do pagan rituals in the dark.
4. Roomies leave their hair wads in your shower drain.
5. Roomies bring along evil kittehs who take glee in terrorizing your big three big fat cowardly lions.
6. Roomies wake you up all the time to ask favors like: Can I borrow your car?
7. Roomies use your stuff - makeup, qtips, jewelry, clothes, hair stuff, whatever.
8. Roomies come home drunk and eat all your cinnamon sticks and say very strange things, like: “You’ve been folding towels ALL THIS TIME?”
9. Roomies are quite unconcerned with electrical bills… as long as they aren’t footing it, anyway.
10. Roomies leave you with no *real* alone-time, because you know they could come back at any moment spoiling all the good alone-ness of the alone-time

In case you couldn’t tell, I’ve been living with a roomie for a while, and it’s been an adventure. Good friend roomie probably has a similar list of “Reasons not to live in your friend’s house” list, which would probably include things like: “Roomies nag CONSTANTLY about things they doesn’t do themselves, like rinsing one’s dishes.” Me and A don’t live well together - after many years of doing just that, we’ve learned our lesson, but when a girl’s got sewer problems, a girl’s got sewer problems, you know? And what’s a good friend to do but take in a roomie until it’s fixed?

However, she oughta be leaving today, which makes me happy, and probably her, too - I’m sure she’s dying to get away from my naggy, annoying ass just as much as I’m ready to get rid of her. Still, it’s gonna be a bit strange. Two weeks of having another body in the house to talk to will make for an odd transition to that sudden aloneness.

Still, how do married people DO IT?