So, in all this time I haven’t been posting, or even making much of an appearance anywhere on the web, I’ve been pretty busy, in a still-not-getting-anything-accomplished way.

Packing. Ugh. Hell. Packing. I am the world’s slowest and most impossible packer. For one, I like everything to be… perfect. I want all similar items together, and packed just so… but that’s difficult, because I don’t have similar items except for genres of books. All of my stuff is like, random junk. I have to do mental gymnastics to coordinate stuff together to stick it in a box, and even though the Olympics are going on as we speak, I am not an Olympian at this. Not even close.

I’ve packed 14 boxes of books. And several boxes of random stuff. And that’s where it ends. Hooboy. I have sooo much more to go, but mostly, I sit there and stare at my stuff and pace and wish I could just snap my fingers and it’d all be done for me, perfect and as I want it. Sooo not happening. It’d be nice if magic worked like that, wouldn’t it?

I’ve also been knitting, some, but not much. Why not much? Because I signed up for Ravlympics, and… then I was knitting on one of my socks, and then… the sock… it was too small after I got past the heel. Fuck. I knew it. I knew it two inches in, but I persevered, thinking I was just being overly paranoid, like I was about the last sock I thought would be too small. And now, I’m halfway through a sock that’s too small to wear. Too small for anyone I know to wear. I have the smallest feet ever, or close to it. Rrfg. So now I’m faced with the task of ripping it out, which has put me off knitting somewhat, and I haven’t felt like doing the lace project I signed up to do, so…

Well, there you go. So I’m knitting mittens for a swap. They’re super fast, and almost done. I’m just waiting on confirmation of the hand measurements before I top them off, because… well, the girl I’m knitting for said her hands were about ‘average’ length, except, she gave me a measurement that’s smaller than MY hands, and I have hands the size of your average eleven year old. Sooo not average. So either she made a typo or a measuring error… or she just doesn’t know what average hands are. Either way, I want to be sure before I finish them.

I’ve also been reading. A., (whose website went under when she forgot to pay for her domain), lent me the first two books of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. Not bad. Good reading, not spectacular, but fun. The main character sort of drives me insane, because she is soooo an average idiot teenager, and I am sooo past that. Also, oddly, between her two romantic choices, for once, I don’t like the vampire best. Interesting, that. A., who always likes the vampire best, agrees with me. Edward just sort of… doesn’t have it going on. I mean, in the first book, when you don’t really have Option Two in play much, he’s all right, but his faults really stack up in the second book, if you ask me. Ah well. As I said, the main character is an idiot teenager, so her undying love for him is not surprising.

I’ve also been watching the Olympics at work. Tonight is my last night of work at this job, ever, and I guess I will just… not see any more Olympics after this. (I don’t, for the confused, have TV. I have a television, but no… service. Nada. Zilch. Zippo.) Fft. I never get to see the Olympics…

By the way, am I the only one who sort of wishes they’d do the Olympics like they did in ancient times: a.k.a. in the nude. Now that would really be worth watching!

I thought I knew debt. I lied. I’m now in over a hundred grand…. but on the bright side, I’ve PURCHASED A CONDO!!!

Just thought I’d share.

So I went to Billings last week for 5 fun-filled nightmarish days. It was a disaster from one end to the other, the only bright side being that yes, come the end of the month, barring some wild and unsavory turn of events with the inspector, mortgage, and/or natural disaster, officially own my very own house, one nobody can just make me leave one day on a whim. Not that anyone ever *has* just kicked me out on a whim before; I’m just sayin’.

That’s the good news. I have a place to live when I move at the end of the month. Bad news? College is a bust. MSU College of Technology is a fucking bitch. They’ve lost my transcripts (more than once), they’ve failed to give me vital information, and now my classes are 100% full with a mile-long waiting list. Their fault, mostly, but I take some responsibility in not having been a little more on top of things and just trusting that everything would work itself out even if they were being incompetent asshats over there.

So, it’s on to a job hunt now. And a lot of therapy knitting. And steroids.

Seriously. I’m on steroids. For hives, of course, because this nightmare involving mortgages and house hunting and college fuckwads kicked my stress (and therefore, my on-again-off-again hives) into overdrive. I just couldn’t take it anymore, and after I told my mother I’d MURDER to get rid of the hives, she and her friend Ella strongarmed me to the doctor for what I thought would be another ass-shot of steroids, but instead is a nice course of prednisone pills. That’ll look real great on any upcoming pre-employment drug tests, no doubt.

I have no idea why my camera decided that all 20+ pictures of this rainbow on July 4 needed to be set against a hellish sky, but I swear, it was a normal gray sky when I took them! Enjoy.

It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been, granted, pretty busy - working, mostly, extra shifts, extra hours… And on my days off, I’ve been busy, too. You see, we [meaning, my parents, really] have a buyer for our farm on the line, and he’s very interested. But he wants my house, too - and of course, if that’s what it takes to sell the farm, by god, we’re selling my house with it. The farm’s been on the market for 4 years and hasn’t sold yet. Now it’s very nearly a completed deal.

But. (There’s always a catch, isn’t there?) The deal hinges upon an appraisal meeting the value of the offer. This guy who wants it? He’s kind of… odd. Richer than sin, 65, wanted to farm all his life, already purchased a farm neighboring ours, just sold a 1.2 million dollar house… And he says if the appraisal doesn’t meet his offer, he’s walking away. No renegotiating, no lowering his offer. He’s just walking away.

Hello pins, hello needles, let’s sit down for a while.

My future rests largely on this sale - if we sell the farm, we can probably buy a place in Billings for me to live, and I may not have to take up begging for alms on the street corners and making friends with the local soup kitchens, you know? Because rent for a single person is expensive. And I’m looking at a thin budget. Too thin, with the price of food, gas, and energy these days. Much too thin. Having a rent-free place would do a lot for me - even with the super expensive utility bills a good sized house would bring, it still won’t cost as much as renting an apartment and paying utility bills. Besides, rentals have one other problem - my cats. I now have three of them, through no fault of my own (I’ll fess up, though, and admit that if I hadn’t inherited my Persian, I may well have picked up another cat somewhere anyway.), and you just can’t find rentals that allow three cats. I’m having trouble finding more than 2 or 3 places that allow ANY pets. And I’m of the belief that you don’t just discard your animals when it’s inconvenient - there are responsibilities that come with owning pets, and looking after them for life is one of them.

The chickens are another matter - they’re not pets, they’re not attached, hell, I’d like to eat some of them. Well, probably not. The ones I’d like to “eat” are the small ones that wouldn’t make for good eating, so nevermind. But livestock is different. Though I’d like to take a few chickens with me, too. Or at least continue to raise chickens. But that is likely not gonna be possible. Still, they might go with the farm, so that problem is taken care of, too! Evidently, the potential buyer’s wife likes chickens! At least, she likes them enough to have a chicken-themed kitchen. Who knows if she’d actually like the real monsters?

So. Anyway. The point of all this rambling is that I am Stressed Out. And if there was ever a time to need a little magic, to need a good energy push for things to end up in the right direction, now is it. I got the basics of the ritual from a book called Grimoire for the Green Witch by Ann Moura, which is one of my favorite references. It’s not Wiccan, exactly, but it’s Wiccan inspired - but I still like it. I like her style. I don’t remember which ritual inspired me, but it was one of the money spells. And of course, it involved a green candle.

Let me just say that I love candle magic. There is nothing more magical to me than candles, except perhaps a waterfall, or an ocean, or the moon. Okay, well, nature itself. But fire. Fire is magic to me. I chose a green candle - a slender chime candle, not a big green one like I pictured. I don’t have a big green one, even a green votive right now, or I would’ve used that. I anointed it in the Blue Moon Water I created last October. It’s the most powerful holy water I have, and I needed a good boost of power. I carved runes in it for prosperity and success. I mixed herbs together, herbs with the same properties - prosperity, success. I burned patchouli incense [as an aside, I didn’t know how much I liked that until I burned it!] for prosperity as well, and set my green candle in a small cauldron.

I lit the candles - my working altar candle, bit and white and fat and symbolizing the divine, and a couple small tea lights for illumination. I laid out a couple oracle cards indicating my intent - security and prosperity and business success. And I visualized what I wanted - the sale of the farm, the deal going through, the purchase of the properties we wanted to buy. When I could see exactly what I wanted, I lit the green candle, and watched it burn. I sprinkled the herbs into the cauldron with it, over the flame. A little reckless, but I liked seeing the sparks. [I didn’t like accidentally melting an herb to my thumb, which was sort of painful, and will be remembered in the future as something Not To Do.]

Then… I walked away. That’s the beauty of candle magic - once that image and intent and power is fused in the candle, your work is done. The candle does the rest. With chime candles, I just let it burn down to a stub. It took an hour, about, perhaps a little more or less. I went on with my morning (it was dawn by then), listened to good celtic music and danced off all the excess energy, and greeted the day. When the candle was just a stub, I blew it out - god forbid I catch all the herbs on fire, haha, wouldn’t that make for an exciting morning? - and let the remaining wax cool. To finish up, I took the wax and herbs and the remains of my incense outside and buried it in my garden.

It was a good ritual.

But I still had an emotional breakdown two days later, and tonight, if I can manage it, I’m going to do another ritual - one to let go of all these doubts and fears of mine so I can move on when the time comes. I’m not normally so terrified of change, but this is a big step, like selling off a piece of my childhood, a symbol of home and security. Who wouldn’t need a little grounding, a little healing, after that?

[As a side note: I got my blocking wires from KnitPicks, so I can block my Loopy Ewe swap partner’s gift at LAST and get pictures soon! And I finished R’s socks. And I’m making a dishcloth for a coworker! Yay, knitting!]

Fill in the blank. No posts. No tarot. No finished knits. No sleep. No life.

Why haven’t I blogged? I’ve barely had enough of a life to stretch it 24 hours a day, let alone find something halfway interesting to write about and post here. Unlike A, whose life is one dramatic moment after another, always interesting (even if it is in a stab-my-eyes-out-please sort of way), mine is pretty much just flatlining.

I am pretty much flatlining. I have a stack of books to read. Haven’t. I have a trunkload of yarn to knit. Haven’t. I have a freezer full of things to cook. Haven’t. A list of things to do. Haven’t.

What have I been doing? Laying in bed, one day for eleven freaking hours. I take winter hibernation seriously around here, I guess - or I would, if I was actually sleeping all that time I’ve spent lounging around. The problem is that I’m not sleeping, actually, or at least, not slepeing well. Makes me pretty apathetic all around.

So last night, I got off my ass and cleaned up some (because my house is a wreck; no motivation to do laundry, let alone breathtaking things like switch my vacuum cleaner on…) and made a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

In case anyone out there doesn’t have a single chocolate chip recipe in the world, here’s my grandmother’s. I always double the recipe, because you can never have too many chocolate chip cookies, or even too much dough in the fridge to eat out of hand. But do what you want.

Rosemary’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1 C shortening (Crisco!)
1/2 C white sugar
1 C brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 C + 4 Tbsp flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
some chocolate chips

Cream shortening & white sugar. Add the other ingredients one at a time, mixing well in between. Stir in chocolate chips at the end. Warning: I always put in [way] too many chips. Don’t overload, or the dough may have trouble sticking together.

Drop spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. I’ve never needed to grease mine, but do what makes you and your cookie sheets comfortable. Bake approximately 10-12 minutes or until golden on the bottoms. Let cook a few minutes before removing from the pan.

Makes good dunkers.

Cookies to be made:

Almond crescents (kiflins)
Cry Babies (soft frosted drops of molasses heaven)
Raisin Puffs (soft puffy raisin cookies)
Peanut Butter cookies? Maybe.
Something new?

I need to bake, anyway. I need to get rid of some of these EGGS.

I’m getting 14-16 a day these days. What the hell?

You’d think vacation would be the perfect to get some serious knitting done - but it’s just not happening. Maybe because the Luna Moth shawl’s rows are getting a bit longer than my multitasking mind prefers. 199 stitches takes me several minutes to knit through, and I find it hard (read: scary) to put it down mid-row to, say, pet my cat, or drink my tea, or tell someone online something that just popped into my head.

So Luna is creeping along, and will not be done by October 31st. But she’s coming along, nonetheless. I’m just about to start my third ball of yarn, meaning I’m half done, or close to it, anyway. Two repeats left - with longer and longer rows each time.

It also doesn’t help that I only had a 32 inch circ, and aluminum needles (when I’d prefer wood with this yarn), and it’s just so… pain-in-the-ass to work with. The cable is never quite right, never quite comfortable [By The Way: actually boiling the cable needle freaking works wonders to straighten it! Screw steaming it - just toss that puppy in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes!] and the needles just seem strangely heavy an slick and wrong for this project. Wrong, I tell you.

But I’m dealing.

Looks nice and autumny, doesn’t she? Well, here’s an impulse buy that I made with some extra money received from a rummage sale:

Make that two impulse buys:

And the household altar that I’ve put them on.

No, your eyes are not deceiving you - the altar pic was taken before I’d purchased these. Also, before I filled my cauldron with leaves - which dried beautifully in the air.

I’m a regular ol’ Martha Stewart these days, eh? Too bad I don’t yet have a /bit/ of Halloween decor up yet. *sheepish* Better get that done in the next night or two! Really! Maybe I’ll leave it up through mid-November, just to make it worthwhile? Naw.

One last picture today:

That’s the day’s eggs. 12 total, out of 17 chickens. Not bad at all! The fat brown one on top is my favorite. I always like the brown eggs, though. They seem so darned country.

So I didn’t exactly get any photos up as planned. But finally, I got some sockiness for you! The shawl isn’t feeling up to facing the paparazzi today, so no shawl pics. She apologizes.

A sock:

Moving on, I finally got all my gardening finished for the year. Potatoes dug. Onions dug. Carrots dug. Look at all this good stuff. The carrots were huge. The onions were tiny (Underwatering and a whole garden full of weeds contributed to that, I’m sure.)

The potatoes… Well, see for yourself.

What the hell? Spots? All over them?! And doesn’t that black-spotted one look nasty?! Freaky, man. I don’t know what happened. Google did me no good whatsoever. The flesh on the inside is good. But the skin… it’s like got acne or leprosy or some biblical plague. Disturbing.

PS: Hey Janna. You buy me some nice sock yarn, I make you some socks. Deal? ;-) Hey, there’s a shop in Billings called The Wild Purl. Supposedly. Look it up, ne?

Finally, things are settling down. My second batch of chicks came in Monday. Sort of. I actually raced to the nearest big city (90 miles away) to pick them up from that post office, rather than wait the extra day it would take for them to be delivered, suspecting (with good reason) that if I did, most of them would die off again.

This time, when I opened the box at the postal sortation center, all but one were alive. Five have perished since, but overall, 16 out of 22 live chicks is far better than 8 out of 29! And boy are they all growing! My oldest chicks are two weeks old, and the youngest one week, and they’re all getting so big! And feathery.

And they’re still scared to death of me, mostly.

Silly birds.

How’s everything else going? Not too bad. Emergency trip to the second biggest city nearby to get cat food and groceries. And sheets, since my current ones are so well worn that the elastic no longer is. So I picked up new ones, with much trouble and despair. For one, why the heck is everything sateen these days? Sateen is a certain way of weaving the fibers to make a very… satin-like feel to the sheets, which I am not that fond of to begin with. I don’t like satin, and I don’t like sateen.

But I had to get some anyway. They had a half dozen colors in regular old 340-610 thread count cotton sheets (I refuse to buy 250-300 thread count sheets, too scratchy), but every single color was pastel or white. And everything in my room is so… not. So I griped and griped and finally settled on some plum colored sateen crap that didn’t feel too sateen like. And at least it matches. And at least it was on SALE. So I didn’t pay full price for sheets I am less than thrilled with.

Oh, did I mention that sateen sheets will take less wear and tear before they succumb to sheet-death? Yeah.

Knitting? Not much going on in the last week, I’m afraid, though I worked a bit on my backyard leaves scarf, and keep urging myself to use my new swift to wind up a skein of yarn to do Mom’s mother’s day gift. I got as far as putting the skein ON the swift. No further. Clearly, I need someone else to kick my ass, because I’m not very good at kicking my own.

I have said very little in the last few days. I’ve been stressed with real life issues, and frankly, haven’t felt up to saying a word about it on here. My grandmother, who I’m very close to, has a terminal condition that will probably end her life within the month - a tear in her aorta that could… just rip open like a zipper, or burst like an aneurysm at any time. It’s been a depressing three weeks. First she was in the hospital for gall bladder surgery - they thought that was causing her chest pain. Then, a week later, she was back… and that’s when they discovered the real problem. She’s been having the pain since late January - it’s a miracle she’s lived this long.

I’ve been busy talking to my mother (Grandma is her mother) and visiting and just trying to keep busy in general.

I’ve also been working on the chicken brooder, and watching my herbs grow (that aerogarden really works wonders!) and shopping online for my secret pal, and for me, of course, and working an extra day this week, and an extra half-shift last week, and dealing with the fact that I am basically on my own for Easter due to my work schedule, despite the fact that the entire family (all my mother’s siblings) are coming up to visit Grandma, and dealing with the fact that I virtually had no birthday celebration, and certainly had no weeklong vacation/trip to the Big City to shop with Mom as planned, and not even a trip up to Canada to have Joey’s Only Seafood, as desired. And more, there’s been deaths in the families of two co-workers (hence the overtime) and with Grandma’s health the way it is, there will soon be a death in mine, and there is no way I can plan to get out of town anytime in April for a week (since my first plans at the end of March were cancelled due to the gallbladder surgery), and I’ve just got the feeling that I won’t be doing anything in May, either.

And dammit, I’m /stressed/.

Beyond measure.

And the chicks are coming Monday, and I had a crisis about the feed that I have to try to resolve in a couple hours when the hatchery opens up so I can call and have them change my order slightly. And I still have no coop, though at least I have the brooder part - hopefully - figured out, but I have to get cracking on it that this morning, and tonight. And tomorrow. And I have to clean my house because it’s driving me nuts, and god forbid some uncle want to stop by (I doubt it, I’m sure everyone will be busy, but one never knows, of course) and I really wanted to dye eggs - both for Ostara and Easter, but I just don’t think I have time…

I’m running out of breath here, and all I’m doing as typing. Please. Remember to breathe while you read this.

Everything just seems overwhelming at this point, and I really need to sit down and take a long bubble bath, and chant quietly to mysef: And this too shall pass.

In the midst of my upset-ness two days ago, I shuffled the tarot deck and drew a card about the situation with Grandma. The first one I drew was the nine of wands, and it really impacted what I /wanted/ to do - fight. Fight on. Do something - anything - to keep Grandma going. And then I asked myself what I /needed/ to do in this situation. And I drew the eight of cups. Let go.

I don’t want to. But all things must come to an end. All of us will one day pass on, and the only thing those left living can do is let go, and move on.

I just wish it was so easy as all that.

Anyway. If I am still more absent… this is why. Busy with chicks - and gods, how I need a symbol for renewal and life right now - and busy with family, making the most of what time we have left, wishing that I could go back and change the past and visit her more often than I did.

But we all have lives to live, paths to walk. I have many, many good memories, and will always have them. And I have time now to make up for what I may have lost.

Well, I did it. I ordered chickens. Call me crazy, but early in the week of April 9th, I’ll have something like 28 baby chicks in my hands. (25 was the minimum order. I went with an assortment of layer hens, and then added 3 special chicks, just to be sure I got something I wanted.)

Fun.

Now I need to go lay down and try not to dwell on the fact that I am now officially insane.