Polgara Knits

May 1st?? May freakin’ first?!!! Wow, someone needs to kick my ass. Let’s see if I can summarize the past holy-wow-six months.

May:
Bad news first: My cat Trouble died. It was a terrible terrible thing, and I still blame myself for being too busy to take her to the vet sooner. She spent almost a week in the vet hospital before she passed, and I visited her every day. I wasn’t with her when she died, arriving about 30 minutes too late.

June:
Was the “official” photographer for a meet and greet fan event with Nick Brendon.

Got a new friend for Jack–this is Dr. Zeva Tinycat, although she’s no longer quite this tiny, as she eats like the shelter cat she was. She’s two and a half, loves string and meowing a lot, doesn’t like people food, and bounces on the stomachs of my houseguests when they sleep on the couch.

Started seeing a therapist. She’s cool, albeit expensive. The expense adds a little to my stress, but I feel it’s the one thing I can’t really talk about with her.

July:
Drove out to Zion National Park in Utah by myself and spent a couple of days hiking. It was an incredible experience. The park was beautiful, and being on my own and beholden to none was very freeing. Next time, though, I’d rather share the beauty with someone–and the little travelled trail I’d discovered.

August:
For my birthday I got my first ever kidney stone. Yeah, it sucked donkey balls. It hit two days before, at work. I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, where my boss hung out with me until I was released (and it was *his* birthday). Spent the rest of the week on my couch in much pain. Bonus, I still have two more stones hanging out in my kidneys that could drop at any time. Yay.

September:
Spent nine days at Disney World with nine friends and relatives to celebrate my sister’s 40th birthday. We had a BLAST! Seriously, one of my best vacations ever.

October:
Work project kicked into high gear and the stress became the center of my life. Not the greatest month ever. However, I did make it to Carnaval in West Hollywood for the first time in about seven years, so that was cool. It’s still just as fun and crazy as I remember. And I spent four hours on a Saturday helping to assemble holiday boxes to send to troops in I believe Afghanistan. That was cool.

So now it’s November. The work project is still in progress and still stressful, but should be launching in a week and a half. Unfortunately it coincides with a Fitness Challenge being held at the work-site gym, where eight teams of eight are competing to lose the most (percentage-wise) in seven weeks. I’m blogging my progress with that little event over here, but I must say, not being able to eat chocolate when I’m stressed is doing bad things to my general disposition.

I’ve been crocheting this whole time. All summer I’d work on granny squares–boring, basic squares, each made from a full ball of Plymouth Encore. I now have 20 squares that need to be joined into a blanket. Don’t know when that’ll be happening. I also made one ginormous granny square blanket for my sister’s birthday.

So that’s the past six months in a nutshell. Hopefully it won’t be another six months before my next update.

I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago, where I got to hang out with a friend that I don’t see very often (like, every two years or so), but when we do, it’s like time hasn’t passed. He’s ridiculously easy to talk to, which we did for hours, and he’s very good at pointing out things that hadn’t occurred to me, and motivating me when I’ve given up on stuff (for example, he’s the one that convinced me to see another doctor two years ago about my knee–the doctor who then discovered the torn meniscus and need for surgery). This time was no exception.

I’ve been in a rut for a long time. I’ve known it, I blogged about it, but haven’t really done anything to get out of it–and no, picking up the hook and needles again doesn’t really count. The key, of course, is getting the hell out of the house. I spend waaaay too much time alone–sure, I have no problem with my own company, but eventually it does become too much. He gave me some suggestions to move me in the right direction, which may or may not stick for the long term, but for now at least it seems to be working.

So I’m going to San Fran soon for a weekend, to attend some WordPress seminars and to see another dear friend that I don’t see nearly enough. It was totally a whim decision, which I need to do more of.

And I’ve planned some camping trips–or rather, I’m tagging along with my almost-always camping friend on a couple of her outtings. Joshua Tree should be a good place to explore with my bicycle, and Big Bear will be great for the hiking and the smell of trees, which I really miss.

I have more friends visiting in May and June, and my work on other people’s websites will be ending very soon, so maybe, hopefully, if I stay motivated, I’ll finally take my bike out to the beach once or twice in the coming months.

And totally unexpectedly, but I’m excited so I’m putting it here anyway, one of my little brothers is in town, so I’ll be seeing him this week for the first time in four years. Yay!

Which is all well and good, but the second part is, I really need to meet new people, and that’s the hard part. I suck at meeting new people. Really, truly, please don’t make me do it, suck at it. I am weird and awkward and stay stupid stuff all the freakin’ time, and my friends love me anyway, but I hate to inflict that on strangers. I haven’t really figured this part out yet, but it’s on the List.

I also really need to move out of my apartment, but that one may be the hardest task of all–I hate change, I hate moving, I hate new situations that run the risk of sucking more than the old situation. And there are a couple of other steps on the to do list, that I may or may not do, but those are the key points.

So that’s the state of me. Time will tell if I can rock as Captain of my own Destiny, or if I wind up sitting on a reef somewhere. Again.

And since I hate imageless posts, here’s a tattoo design I’m considering (no final decisions yet, either on design or even if I’ll definitely get one). It symbolizes rebirth encircled by hope.

Nancy and Paula

I’m back from my fabulous 40th birthday celebratory cruise to the Caribbean. There was much snorkeling (that’s my sis and me in the pic, in Grand Cayman) and swimming and walking and kayaking and shopping and sweating (lordy was it hot and humid!) and drinking and singing (karaoke and piano bar FTW!) and eating and relaxing and reading and laughing and not nearly enough dancing (my knee and ankle just didn’t cooperate) and celebrating in general. And perhaps best of all, I only gained two-tenths of a pound-?!! Woot!

For those so inclined, pics can be found here (that’s the edited-for-quantity set).

I need more kayaking in my life. Good exercise combined with zero strain on my weakened lower extremeties = general awesomeness. More snorkeling would be awesome too, but to be honest, the Pacific scares me a bit. (Sharks!)

ION, I need something new to look forward to. Too soon to start planning for next year’s Disney trip? Hmm…..