I Don't Hafta if I Don't Wanna!

Guess what... It's December 1st. That means NaBloPoMo is officially over. I don't have to post today! No matter what anyone says, no matter what anyone does, I absolutely positively refuse to post. I will make my presence known in the world by my lack of posting. I am the ruler of my life, and I will not post today under any circumstance.

What? This? Oh yeah, I guess it is, huh? Darn it!

*whispers* Just pretend I wasn't here, okay?

One More Time!

Last time I took on a thirty day challenge, it didn't go so well. NaBloPoMo has worked out a little better for me. Surprisingly, I managed to post every day, and once in a while I even wrote something mildly satisfying. I was so excited at the idea of putting a little badge on my side bar to let the whole world know that I actually finished a project I started - but then I saw the badge on the NaBloPoMo site:

Ack! It's cute and all, but does a fluffy girl like myself really need to plaster a dough boy on her blog? I don't think so. Luckily, some other creative types have come up with badges that they're willing to share with the graphic design challenged crowd. I'll choose one of those non-pastry-oriented versions.

NaBloPoMo has been fun, and I've met some interesting characters. Just check out my links bar to meet them yourself. Now, those crazy bloggers have come up with another challenge:

Check here at the individual voice for the details! Am I crazy? Yep. Will it be fun? Definitely. Will I feel guilty if I mess up on this one? Come on, the logo obviously states, "We Are The Procrastinators"!

Oh yeah, this is my kind of challenge.

Can Opener Soup

Have I mentioned how much I love my crock pot? I think it's the best technological advancement in ages. It's like having hired help as far as I'm concerned. Tonight, the house was filled with a wonderful aroma, and our tummies were filled with one of our favorite meals.

A couple of years ago my mom gave me this recipe for Taco Soup. When you see the ingredient list, you'll understand why the kids and I decided it needed a different name. I'm sure the die hard foodies out there will turn their noses up, but around here, super easy and really tasty trump gourmet any day. Enjoy!

Can Opener Soup

2 lb hamburger
1 diced onion
1 can Ro-tel
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 can chili ready tomatoes
1 can light kidney beans
1 can chili beans
1 can corn
1 can hominy
1 pkg taco seasoning
1 pkg ranch dressing mix
tortilla chips
shredded cheese

Brown ground beef with onions. Combine cooked beef, canned goods (undrained), and dry mixes in large crock pot. (I've used a 4 qt, but it always makes me nervous that it's too full. A 6 qt is much better.) Cook on low for 4-5 hours. Serve with tortilla chips and shredded cheese.

Big Fat Liar

I am a complete fraud. I am so ashamed of myself. Do you see the title of this blog? It's "Word + Craft." Have you seen any craft around here lately? Nope? Me neither. I originally intended this blog to be equal parts knitting and random musings. So far, I've only made one knitting post. Do you know why? BECAUSE I HAVE NOT BEEN KNITTING!!!

Sorry about the yelling. I'll try to calm down. It's just that I miss knitting. I miss the coziness of the yarn sliding through my fingers. I miss stopping every few rows to admire my handiwork. I miss the rhythm and the repetition. Knitting soothes me, and since I haven't been soothed much lately, I'm getting kind of cranky.

I've been so time crunched between the end of the semester, Thanksgiving, and just playing mom that the last time I tried to knit a few rows, I fell asleep. I decided it was better to put the sticks and string away than to risk a fatal knitting accident. So, I still don't have any progress updates , because there hasn't been any progress. But I can show you what I want to knit...

The Patons SWS in Natural Geranium wants to be a Calorimetry when it grows up.

The Knit Picks Essential in Shoreline Twist is jumping up and down to be a pair of socks for Rhett.

The Knit Picks Shadow in Lost Lake Heather has repeatedly tried to become a Gloriana lace scarf (it's the one on the far left), but I kept having to frog it because I'm horrible at tinking lace.

And, the Manos del Uruguay in Stellar is destined to become My So Called Scarf.

Do you see how patient they are? They just watch from afar and wait for their turn. (Although, the Manos has been known to sigh loudly on occasion.) I can't keep leading them on like this. Soon - at least I hope it's soon - I'll stop being such a liar and help all of my little yarn friends achieve their dreams.

Dream On

I had the strangest dream last night. This guy from church - we'll call him Bro. Friendly - was really angry with me. You have to realize that Bro. Friendly is, without a doubt, the nicest guy I know. He is always smiling. He teaches Sunday School and even does a Family Fireside once a month. But for whatever reason, in my dream, Bro. Friendly was not all that friendly. He was all red-faced with a vein bulging in his forehead, and he was right up in my face, just screaming at me. He kept accusing me of stealing furniture from some family I didn't even know. All I could say was, "I didn't do it! Rhett did!" About the time I was sure that Bro. Friendly was actually going to punch me, I woke up.

I wonder what that dream means. Let's look it up in a dream dictionary. Evidently I am a conflicted, anxiety-ridden, attention-starved mess. (Stop giggling, Rhett.) Who knew the images from my dreams could be so accurate? Let's try a couple of other dreams I remember.

I have a recurring dream about my teeth falling out. That means I feel powerless or out of control. (Yep. Most days.) I often dream that I flunked high school and have to go back and do it all over again. That signifies feeling inadequate. (Are you noticing a pattern here?)

Aha! This is a bunch of hooey - I found one where they are completely wrong. When I was pregnant with Oldest, I dreamed I gave birth to a kangaroo. According to the dream analysis, that means I was anxious about delivering a healthy baby. No, no. That's not it at all. That was a prophetic dream about having a son with big feet who likes to carry toys in his britches.

Whew! For a minute there, I thought I was really messed up!

Frazzled, but Happy

This is me after spending the last umpteen hours cranking out my research paper. I'm exhausted, kinda scary lookin', but so glad to be done. Granted, it's only a rough draft, but with the excruciating self-editing I do on the fly, it's smoother than you might think. I may have a few too many direct quotes, but I'll change those to paraphrases tomorrow - or the next day. And just think, I got it all done with three hours to spare until the alarm goes off! (Actually, my fantastic, darling, absolutely wonderful husband has promised I can sleep in tomorrow. Sweet, huh?)

Now I just need to write my play analysis. Anybody out there got 1500 extra words lying around?

All Right, Already!!!

I really don't want to post today. Not at all. I've been writing about Sylvia Plath all day, and I don't really have any other words left, but the little voice inside of me keeps pushing me to do it anyway. I don't know why I'm listening. It's not like the NaBloPoMo police are going to knock on the door at midnight and haul me in for my lack of blogging. But still, I am here typing.

That voice loves to nag me. It is the same voice that tells me I need to keep house better, reminds me I'm not exercising enough, prods me to fret over grades (both mine and my children's), and constantly whispers that no matter what I do it's never enough. That voice is torture.

I realize this post is not remotely funny, or interesting, or enlightening. Believe me, I know that. But it is a post nonetheless, and maybe that voice will shut up now - at least for a few minutes.

It's Caturday!

I'm still deep in Plath-land, so it's time for more funny kitties - and bears!

more funny pictures

We Surrendered

The kids have taken over the living room. They have firmly planted a PlayStation flag on their newly acquired territory. Luckily, Rhett and I escaped unscathed thanks to a cleverly drafted peace accord. The agreement gives us rights to the bedroom television and passage to the kitchen as needed. So, we spend the evening as refugees.

Thank goodness for Tivo.

Gratitude

Today is all about giving thanks. (Or overeating. I'm never sure which.) Anyway, I thought I'd take a minute to think about what I'm thankful for:

1. My kids are smart, funny, strong, and healthy.


2. Rhett is patient with my silliness. Very patient.


3. We have a roof over our heads and food on our table.

I truly am thankful for these things, but the list feels a little stale. This is the same stuff everybody else is thankful for. I need to show gratitude for the little things, the things I usually take for granted:

1. Rock-star parking


2. Yarn ( I would say it's cheaper than therapy, but if you saw my stash you'd know I was lying.)


3. Warm socks


4. The way my Dad's eyes light up when he tells a joke


5. One of the cats, Matilda, being smart enough to stand by the door and use a special meow when she feels a hairball coming on


6. My favorite song playing on the radio exactly when I need to hear it


7. Yarn-stealing squirrels in Canada - They give the Yarn Harlot something to write about.


8. And, of course, I can't leave out pumpkin pie:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Guest Blogger

Murphy here. Deanna asked me to fill in for her today. I guess she's supposedly doing homework. Whatever. I usually don't spend a lot of time on the computer unless I need a warm place to take a nap, but I thought this was the perfect opportunity to get some things off my chest.

First of all, what is with the lolcats? Do you people really think we talk this way? Give me a break! Even that idiot across the street, Snowball, is smarter than the cats in those stupid pictures. I mean, really, who spells like that? And enough with the buckets and cheeseburgers already. It might have been funny the first eighty-three times, but give it up. The whole idea of lolcats is just offensive. Don't make me call the ACLU about this.

One more thing: The human on feline violence has got to stop. Just because you have opposable thumbs doesn't mean you have the right to torture us with the weapon of mass annoyance:

You know it's not a fair fight. All I'm saying is, if you don't want a hairball in your penny loafers, put down the spray bottle.

I gotta run. I just heard the dryer buzz, and I have a feeling there is a basket of warm towels with my name all over it. Later. - M

What's up Chuck?

Since Mike Huckabee is our former governor, and my kids have a penchant for Chuck Norris jokes, I absolutely had to post this:



I still have no clue who I'm voting for, but I like that the Huckster isn't taking himself too seriously.

Oh, Sylvia

When choosing a topic for my research paper, I finally settled on Sylvia Plath's poetry. I know that sounds trite and so overdone, but I feel like I must. When I was in high school, some of my more literary girlfriends were bordering on obsessed with the tragedy of Sylvia Plath. They went on and on about Plath's brilliant expression of her pain in life, always talking about how they, too, would "eat men like air." I never took the bait. Honestly, I was far too busy plotting my own suicide attempts to be fascinated with the poet who stuck her head in an oven. Depression is very self-centered that way.

Now, almost twenty years later, I feel like I've conquered the demon that is Depression - or at least trapped him in a cage where I can poke him with a stick if he threatens to cause trouble. Now I feel like I have the distance I need to even approach Sylvia Plath. Now I've lived longer than seventeen years, and I understand more about the life of a wife and mother that Sylvia chronicled in much of her poetry. Now, I get it.

Don't get me wrong. I actually think some of her poetry is horrible and disjointed. I don't know that she would be so popular if she had lived, or even if she had died in a less spectacular fashion like a car accident or a heart attack. On the other hand, some of her poetry has a clarity and a brutal truth that is hard to find in the world today.

Also, I understand her. I understand not wanting to be alone, but sometimes feeling that men are more trouble than they're worth. I understand motherhood being the pinnacle of accomplishment and simultaneously being the shackles that hinder moving forward. I understand never feeling good enough, no matter what anyone tries to tell you.

I've been reading her journals, and I am struck by her overwhelming intelligence. (Supposedly, she had an IQ of around 160.) The journal is sprinkled with little pep talks she is constantly giving herself, trying to stay one step ahead of the demon. I find myself feeling strangely maternal towards this woman who would be around seventy-five if she were still with us. I want so badly to take her by the hand and tell her it will all be okay, that she is not the only person in the world that feels this way. Sometimes, that's all it takes - just knowing that you're not the only one.

So, even if five or six angst-ridden young women in my class choose to research Sylvia Plath, I don't care. Even if my instructor is sick and tired of reading about Plath's tortured soul, I'm doing it anyway. The truth is, they don't matter any more. This is between me and Sylvia now.

Random is Good

I woke up this morning with a sore throat and a pounding headache and a desire to do nothing but curl up in bed until I didn't feel like I just got hit by a truck anymore. Then I remembered... NaBloPoMo. (Some things sound like such a good idea in the beginning, but eighteen days later, not so much.) Not only did I not feel like writing anything, but I also didn't have any idea what to write. Well, thank heavens for Library Diva. She tagged me for a random meme. Here are the rules:

• Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
• Share seven random and or weird things about yourself.
• Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
• Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here is the randomness of me:

1. When I was in 8th grade I won the school spelling bee. I later lost the county spelling bee because I missed "yardbird." Yes, I know how to spell "yardbird," I just got so excited that I was given such an easy word that I blurted out, "y-a-r-d-b-a-r-d. " Yardbard? What is that? Shakespeare mowing the lawn?
2. When I was little, I named everything George - stuffed animals, lizards, my brother's goldfish, all George. We got a dog that the rest of the family insisted on naming Smoky, but to me he was always Smoky George.
3. I like wasabi peas, partly for their spicy goodness and partly because I just like to say wasabi.
4. Ditto with edamame, except for the spicy part.
5. I think being a midwife would be the coolest job in the world. The only thing stopping me from pursuing that career path is my affinity for sleep. I tend to think that a laboring mother would get a little distraught if, after calling me at 3 a.m., I said, "Now's not really a good time for me. Can I get back with you around 10:00?"
6. When we first got married fifteen years ago, Rhett convinced me to give up my favorite side of the bed, and I've never truly forgiven him. I secretly love it when he goes out of town because I can finally sleep where I want.
7. One day when Rhett and I were driving home from North Little Rock, I counted 134 silver cars. Why? If you haven't determined my sanity level by this point, it won't do any good to attempt an explanation now.

Now for the tagging:

• Unplugged or Unhinged?
• Susie Q
• Sooner Mom
• StarrChild
• r8chel
• Jody
• happycheeksdiapers

Thanks for playing. Now I will return to my regularly scheduled miserableness.

Meow

I'm kind of busy today. Here, look at the funny kitties:

more funny pictures

Ten Things You Probably Don't Know - Or Even Want to Know - About Me

1. I was born without eyelashes. (I guess I was undercooked.)
2. My earliest memory is of my older brother and my cousin holding a big plastic spider over my crib.
3. When I was five, I wanted to be a hula dancer when I grew up.
4. When I was fourteen, I wanted to be Whitney Houston when I grew up. (Now I'm kinda glad that didn't work out.)
5. After I saw American Idol auditions for the first time, I vowed never to sing in public again. Thank heavens my shower isn't in public.
6. I love the smell of tabasco sauce. Seriously. Like huffing it love it.
7. When I was eighteen, I rented a studio in an old house converted into apartments. One night, one of my friends (who worked for my landlord) said, "I did the wiring in that house. I'm surprised it hasn't burned down yet." A couple of hours later, there was a fire.
8. My first job was cleaning chicken poop out of chicken feeders. I guess gagging the whole time made me a less than stellar employee, and they asked me not to come back a second day. I was totally okay with that.
9. I love lolcats. They make me giggle.
10. I'm a member of Mensa. If I'm an example of the top two percent of IQ's, we should all be very worried.

34,000 Ways to Say I Love You

I just found a sock in the middle of the living room floor. I know, I know - as a mother of three boys I should not be all that shocked. What you have to understand is that it wasn't just any old sock laying there abandoned and helpless. It was a handknitted sock.

My boys don't fully realize what that means. In At Knit's End, Stephanie Pearl McPhee (aka Yarn Harlot) says that the average handknitted sock is made up of 17,000 stitches. Yes, you read that right. 17,000 stitches. Now first of all, I didn't realize I had the attention span to do anything 17,000 times. But even more surprising is the fact that, in order to make a pair of socks, I actually had the attention span for 34,000 stitches. In fact, I cherished every single stitch.

You see, when I knit a pair of socks, I'm not just producing an item that I could buy for $1.99 at Wal-Mart. Every inch of the four hundred yards or so of yarn that goes into those socks slides between my fingers as I knit, and I put a little bit of myself into that humble knitted gift.

This is important to me because my boys are getting older, and I often have to send them off into the cold, cruel world to fend for themselves. But I know that when they wear those 34,000 stitches, I'm with them in some way. Since nobody really notices socks, it's like our little secret. I keep their little feet warm. I cushion their step as they run and jump and play. I give them a foundation to stand on when they are faced with a difficult choice.

I know it sounds like a lot to expect from a pair of socks. But trust me, it's in there.

The Rules and How I Break Them

To have an entertaining blog, there are a few rules one should follow. Being that I generally love to bend, stretch, twist, and otherwise manipulate rules, it should come as no surprise that I don’t follow the rules for blogging either. Let us review:

1. Always have something funny, interesting, or enlightening to say, even if you are only posting that you have nothing to say.

Even though Rhett thinks that I never shut up, I actually do run out of things to say occasionally. (That’s usually when I resort to poking penguins.) Even if I haven’t run out of subjects to blather on about, I can’t promise that I’ll be remotely funny, interesting, or enlightening. Now funny looking I can work with.

2. Be constantly on the go. Make trips to interesting places like festivals, or vacation in exotic locales.

Here’s my current list of places I travel: school, back home again, the grocery store, and sometimes I actually make it to church. Scintillating, huh?

3. Take pictures of everything, and then make even the bad ones seem witty.

Have you heard my motto? It’s “Oh crap! I forgot the camera!”

4. Have remarkable friends with clever screen names who provide amusing anecdotes for your blog.

Um, yeah. Did you catch the part where I said the places I go are school, the grocery story, and home? The only people I regularly hang out with, I either married or gave birth to.


Oh well. Next week, my new pal KangarooCharmer and I are going to the first annual Knitting with Noodles Festival, and I’ll be sure to get pictures of the “linguine lace” class. Maybe I’ll have something good to post then.

Contentment

Lately I’ve been a bit overwhelmed, and this morning was no different. I was stressed about a Spanish exam, I still hadn’t decided on a topic for my research paper, the dust bunnies in the closet were ganging up on me, the fat lady in the mirror scared me half to death, and I accidentally stepped on the cat. By the time I got out of the house, I was a self-conscious, overly worried bundle of nerves. Then, something magical happened.

I went blank on a couple of items on the Spanish test – and it was okay. I saw the fat lady’s reflection in a window – and she wasn’t so scary any more. At lunch, I actually let myself just enjoy eating lunch instead of frantically searching for a research topic while I dripped salad dressing all over my books – and the world kept right on spinning. I had no idea things could work that way.

Who knows what changed. Maybe the planets all aligned. Maybe some wish I made on a star one night so long ago I’ve forgotten what the wish actually was finally came true. Heck, maybe I’ve just achieved some kind of miraculous hormonal balance that has washed all my cares away. I’ll never know for sure, but this afternoon has been absolutely splendid. The changing leaves are more vivid, my husband is more handsome, my children are more precious, and the fact that I have no idea what to fix for dinner doesn’t bother me in the least.

Yes, life is good.

Poke the Penguin

Go on! You know you want to...



Psychotic penguin courtesy of Gamesville.