Meds and Murder (of worms, silly!)

I am sitting here trying to think of what to write.  It seems like so much has been happening at this rapid spit fire pace and I can't keep up.  Don't get me wrong, things are going great, but life can always throw a wrench into your plans.
Work has been awesome.  I am really enjoying it.  Things with Adam have awesome.  We rarely fight anymore.
I am knitting, reading, and listening to NPR all the time.  I am fully aware of my surroundings.  I started couch to 5k, and feel really good.  However the wrench arrived swiftly at 9 pm on Wednesday.  I just fell to pieces.  A million of them.  It was not good.  I think it was sparked by a slight change in medication.  This led to more changes in medication.  Things just got fuzzy from there.
Just as quickly as I was down, like normal, I was back up again.  I went fishing with Adam twice last week.  TWICE!  I baited the hook (murdered worms), casted out, AND released the hook from the fish all by myself.    I would have never have done these things previously and it is nice that I can share Adam's hobbies with him.  However, that being said, when we go camping, I will be knitting by the fire with the ladies.
I have been feeling a little existential lately.  Nothing is really coming from it though.  It happens at the worst times when I can't put pen to paper and I get so frustrated that I just drop it altogether.  This week I will try to harness that creative energy and make it work for me.

Progess...

Finished hat #3.  This one went super quick especially since I didn't have to "frog" it half way through.  That was very helpful.  This gorgeous aubergine belongs to Melissa, my sister in law.  I hope she likes it and isn't just like, "Oh, yeah.  Thanks!"  My next knitty natter will be--SURPRISE-- Another hat!  This one will be a camping hat for Adam.  I am excited because they go so quickly and give me a sense of much needed accomplishment.
So I had a doctor's appointment today, and it went really well.  She said that I looked really good and had a glow about me.  It seems that every time, just before I get to her office, I have some epiphany.  This brief spark of light where everything just makes sense.  I realized, even though I have been told so before, that a lot of my issue stem from self image.  I want people to like me so much that I WAY over compensate in the friendliness department.  I can see people physically getting annoyed with me.  It is like the just know I am bullshitting them.  I can see the eyes roll and the fists clench.  As with all things lately, I am just happy that I am now aware of the behavior and can try to control and/or avoid it at all costs.  If people are going to like me and enjoy my company it is not because I am trying to sound like an intellectually their peer, or say hello to them every single time they pass my desk.  They are going to like me because of me (or in spite of my transgressions).
Looking at where I was three months ago to now, I am very satisfied at the person I have become.  I am more like the kind of person I want to be.  Progress is definitely good.

365 days without...

I have been finishing things lately.  I am very proud of that.  It has been hard though.  I have been putting everything I have of myself in to changing and hopefully becoming a better person.  It is hard to forget the not-so-distant past where I have not been the best person.  I can't just change that away.  It is there it will always be.  The not nice things that I have said and thought about and to people makes me feel guilty and bad.  I can tell that despite my changes that other people see it too.  I catch Adam saying "well that is not what happened before"... I cannot just call "shenanigans" on my past intentions just because now my intentions are good and pure.  I guess that it is just part of the reality of things.

I found myself Friday, on the anniversary of my father's death, alone.  (Don't feel sorry) It was just part of the day.  When I woke up very early I was very alone and very aware of the day's significance.  I wasn't sure how to feel, but for the first time in a very long time, I just let myself fully feel my feelings about my loss.  I was on Facebook looking at a collage of photos of him and just sobbing.  It was that good sobbing that you do when no one is around.  There was just a release.  Then my cousin Dawn came on to Skype and I made her talk to me for over an hour.  She asked my how I was doing.  I said that I was fine.  I was in my pjs with tears running down my face.  Then I said I wasn't fine.  I realized I was so pre-conditioned to this state of "fine-ness" for the past year.  I definitely wasn't fine.  I was pissed.  I was angry.  I was sad.  I was definitely NOT fine.  And it was okay.  We had such a great talk, and it was so good to "see" her.  It makes me realize how much I miss my family.  I sometimes try to make Adam's family my family.  It just doesn't work.  (I am sure that they find it annoying that every few months I am just all about them.)  

The weekend went just as quickly as it came.  It seems like this next week is gone just as well.  I am really not sure what I am doing that makes time pass like this, but at times I like it.

I made a coffee cup cozy for a coworker.  It came out really quickly and is really cute.  Then on Saturday, I started a basic roll-brimmed hat.  I finished it Sunday night.  Later I sadly realized it fit my four year old niece. So Monday I tore it out and added a few more rows and Tuesday I finished it at knitting group.  I liked the pattern so much I am starting another one for my sister in law.

I am afraid that spring allergies are sneaking into the house and exploding havoc in our sinuses.  Hopefully we can keep it at bay.

Stripes, Clothes, Rangoon, Oh My!

STRIPES!
I did stripes.  I am so impressed with myself.  This week went really fast.  I was very thankful for that.  I actually completed anther project.
This weekend was super busy. Friday night was spent in Lincoln, IL with my sister in law and niece.  I had an old fashioned sleep over with the girls.  In the morning amid French toast and coffee, we trekked to Bloomington for a quilt show.  Now, I have never been to a quilt show and they are crazy.  Adam called me half way through the day saying he had a surprise for me.  I am not a huge fan of surprises generally, however this was a great surprise.  We had been talking about selling our ga-gillion  gallon aquarium for some time now.  We both kind of lost interest in it and it was the poor fish that were suffering a loss of attention.  He frikken sold the aquarium and fish and everything!  There was a huge empty wall in our dining room.  I hadn't seen the floor there since before we moved in.  The entire room is larger and the poor kitties are just confused.  When I came home we headed to Gander Mountain to pick up some essentials for the fishing season.  On the way home I convinced Adam that I needed more professional looking clothes for work.  He agreed.  We headed to the mall and I had the best time shopping.  Adam was being so helpful picking things out and helping me with sizes.  We ended up in one store for over an hour.  I am really lucky to have him be in there with me for so long and not even complain once.  I was really surprised at what an eye he had for style as well.  There were things that looked great that I would have never put together.  Today, I got up late and started right in with the dishes and finishing the entire task at hand.  Typically I would try to duck out and leave the stove top dirty or a couple dishes left unwashed.  I know that I dote on this but there is such a sense of accomplishment in completing these tasks and projects.  At the end I really feel like I have done something and that the time I have spent on something is valid and worthwhile.  I really like that feeling.  I promised Adam that I would start to go fishing with him at least once a month.  We drove all the way out to Jim Edgar State Park to fish, but to our dismay all of the ponds and lakes were still frozen.  It was 54 degrees!  The day wasn't a total bust.  We drove around the park and finally found  a small pond that was thawed out enough to fish.  It was gorgeous out.  At one point I just wanted to lay in the grass and feel the wind blow over me.  So I did.  All these things were running through my head.  Especially how I got to where I am today.  I can't believe it has been almost seven years that Adam and I have been together, that we are married, that my father is gone.  It is all so unbelievable.  It is just one large concept I cannot completely grasp.
After grocery shopping we came home and fried up some crab ran-goon.  They were AMAZING.

One of the big things coming up this week is on Friday.  It is the anniversary of my father's death.  I think that is the first time that I have put those two words together in writing.  Father's death.  That too is something very real that I have yet to completely deal with.  A couple months ago, when I prompted all of this change in my life it was because of him.  If my father would have seen the way I was living my life he would have been very angry with me.  I was withdrawn and lazy with no ambition for anything.  I am now becoming a different person that he could be proud of.  Along with that is the fact that I cannot live everyday in the wake of his death depressed and yearning for him.  I will not be memorializing him in public with chicken and pilaf in Granite City this year.  I cannot dredge him up for every holiday, anniversary or birthday.  It is not healthy for me.  I remember him quietly everyday and remember how greatly he touched my life and influenced my journey.  Friday I am taking the day off of work and am going to lay low.  I will smoke a cigar and have wine with dinner in tribute to him.  That is the way I will choose to grieve for him on that day in this time in my life.  It may be different next year.  Every one has different ways of grieving.  This is mine.  Others don't necessarily agree with it.  That is fine.  That is there path.  This is mine.  This is what is good for me.  This is what I need.  I think...