Lunchtime

I've been packing my lunch pretty much since sometime in early elementary school when for some reason buying lunch was too scary and made me cry (I was and in many ways still am quite a bit shy and not very accepting about anything I view as new and or scary). Although these days I do it mostly because I'm cheap. 

Every once in a blue moon I'll have a new shiny lunch box or bag which is for a time ridiculously awesome. But the majority of the time my lunch bags are rather dingy dirty and a bit yucky to think or look at.

Somewhat recently, or well maybe for like the last year or two, I've been thinking I should get a new lunch bag. Rather than looking in the stores I was thinking I ought to be able to make my own awesome bag. Also I am cheap and this would avoid sticker shock.

However given my propensity for thinking up projects and never following through. Plus realistically materials costs always end up costing as much if not more than something off the shelf. So I started browsing Etsy :-)

Things I now want:

Way brighter than my norm. But that's not a bad thing.

Very much my normal 'style'.

A bit funky but not too far out there. The complimentary lining is really cute too.

This could possibly be my favorite but it already sold. I love how quirky it is!

Now the only problem is that I am trying to absolutely not let myself spend any money on superfluous things because of saving towards so many awesome vacations. If only I were rich....

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."

A twist on people watching

I dislike driving and am not a fan of it being such a necessity in my life. But as of late I've found a somewhat amusing way to occupy my driving time: people watching.

Most frequently I find myself doing it on the drive home. Looking at the cars on my left and right is a bit sketchy because it's obvious that I'm starting at the other people. But at stop lights I'll watch in the rear view mirror to see if the person behind me is at all interesting (sunglasses are useful). Frequently it's a boring hobby and then I'll drift off into imagination land pretending things about the people around me. Or other times if I'm at the front of the waiting line I'll watch the all of the cars going past cringing at the number of individuals distracted by cell phones and the like. Where is everyone going and what are they doing with their lives? It's interesting to ponder.

Occasionally, most often when there is more than one person in the vehicle, things can be more interesting. Catching someone singing along to the radio is like a surprise bonus.

Self Portrait

Yesterday instead of trying to cram a bike ride between work and the laundromat I went for a walk and took my camera along.

21 days

In 21 days SD and I will be going to Ocean City Maryland!

There is a rather large possibility that this vacation will drive me crazy. You see growing up we had yearly family vacations. We would go somewhere and then try to do and see absolutely everything. So as soon as anyone even mentions 'vacation' I immediately start researching all of the things that there are to do.

However this is SD's vacation and he has declared that no planning is allowed. [Actually he's a push over and I totally could get away with some planning, but I'm being a good person.] Apparently we are supposed to just like sit on the beach all day or something like that. He says it's called "relaxation". I'm speculative.

Ooo I bet I can bring many crafts! yay!

Fail

May goals = fail.

d'oh

The month started off so well.... 

In week one I read like a third of my book, easily accomplished 2 squares, and took a walk. It made me happy.

In week two I was feeling confident and ahead of the game. I played video games and saw SD (the man formerly known as Bran). Then I got ill and did nothing. It's actually almost eerie how much of nothing I did. I absolutely cannot stand doing nothing. But I really was that ill that most of the time I litterally did nothing. This spilled over into week three.

Now I'm finally recovering and working on getting back on the band wagon but gosh darn it there's only so much hope for me now.

O well.....really I'm just happy I can breathe again finally!!!

Goodbye

My Grandfather passed away on Sunday. As sad as it is it is also a good thing. His body was failing and he was ready.

He was a most excellent man. A prominent fixture in the lives of my sister and I growing up, dinners and vacations or trips were plentiful. He had this difficult to describe manor which radiated out as a quirky sense of unintentional humor that permeates my family.

He knew how to love. During his own life he lost 2 wives and 1 daughter, but that didn’t stop him from continuing on with his 3rd wife, 3 sons, 9 grandchildren, and most recently 1 great-grand daughter. And I would be willing to bet that each of us plus the extended family around us knew of his love. His memory wasn’t the best but he knew what was going on with his family. Even when the actions of us younger folk didn’t make sense or follow the paths he might prefer, he would just shake his head and keep on loving us. He would pour over pictures be they old memories or new snapshots of what we are doing. He was proud of me and he would tell me when I least expected it too involved with activities that were routine in my mind. But he would be there beaming. And it felt so good.

Goodbye Grandpa.

Vacationing

As a way to keep spirits high (and a preventative measure against killing ourselves) Bran  and I have been talking vacations for a long time. There were three main ideas that we tossed around:

He is absolutely insistent upon a beach vacation, and the sooner the better. He doesn't really care so long as there is a hotel room and an ocean. I am a camping fanatic. For a number of years now I've gone up to an old church camp and stayed a week for my primary summer vacation. I love the peace, solitude, and fire food :-) At some point in our conversations we both agreed visiting Disney world would be awesome. We're pretty much still kids.

With summer now fast approaching I've been mulling these options extensively. And budget minded me came to the conclusion that we could go on our two smaller trips or we could go on the one big trip. But Bran, who is not at all budget minded and does not pay rent or utilities, disagrees and says we should do it all.

Good thing he's cute because other wise killing my budget may be a fatal decision. Plus he's all talking about how he can pay for stuff. But I don't like him paying for everything. So now I'm trying to scrimp and save anything possible, while still maintaining most of what I've already been doing. And I'm considering eliminating the camping, although it is the cheapest. 

I try to tell myself to worry less about saving money and enjoy life. But alas I am who I am. The trips shall be awesome. Until then I must work on making peace with spending $'s.

May goals.

In order to make this month better than last month (at least with regards to my feeling of productivity) I shall once again establish some distinct goals for myself.

1. Bike 200 miles. Given my recent history this will be pushing it but it really ought to be quite do-able especially since it's getting to be such perfect weather. Plus I'm already signed up for one organized ride that will get me some good miles and the boy and I really ought to start riding together.


2. 6 squares. I was short a knit square in April so lets see if I can't make it up in May. 3 knit, 3 crochet.


3. Spin 100 yards of alpaca. I really want/need to make one of these guys for the friend who gave me all of the alpaca fleece.


4. Read WoT book 5, Fires of Heaven. Having crammed in the last book at the end of the month I'm rather excited about the series now and started FOH already. Plus as always happens with my re-reads everything happens so much earlier in the series/more quickly than I remember. Although when I started yesterday and realized that at again around 1000 pages reading 50 pages a day would still take me the better part of the month and it was a bit depressing.


5. Cross stitch flower. Bonus points for 2 or 1 and a bunch of foliage. So I started this cross stitch over two years ago. Maybe someday I will finish.


6. Take at least 2 walks each week. This will probably be difficult as walks frequently feel to me like they are sucking up time. But recently my knee has been troubling me a bit again and as one of my planned vacations (to be announced later) will involved mucho-walking I want to make sure that my legs are in working order.


If I sat here and tried to come up with more there are certainly things I could think of. But in the interests of actually accomplishing things I best let it remain as is. I suspect it will already be a battle to success. Time is rather in short supply. I should probably quit my job so that I can accomplish more things :-)

April Recap.

So it feels rather like April pretty much kicked my butt. I really don't know what happened....

Home time: I went back to my parents house first for Easter and then later to visit my Grandfather (he's on hospice now).  As much as I like going back to see my family and enjoy spending time with them it always feels like I accomplish nothing from those days. That said I wouldn't trade them back just to get things done. Umm...yea I don't think there is a way to properly express this. Oh well.

Boy time: Bran and I spent a lot of my free hours together. This is also 100% a good thing as our relationship is just getting stronger and stronger and more and more awesome. But seriously he doesn't even let me knit when we're watching movies or TV. No worries though someday I'll overrule him :-)

Crafts: Towards the beginning of the month I do believe I was thinking spinning. I made that little batch of yarn. But then I was distracted by other things. On the square front I only managed to whip up 3 crochet and 1 knit square. With everything going on I've just not had my normal free time. Goodness.

Reading: The Shadow Rising, this months WoT book was just shy of 1000 pages. I hit the middle of the month and realized I was only like 1/3 of the way through. But in this last week I dug down deep and finished it last evening before midnight even :-)

Biking: I do believe that I hit just over 100 miles in April. Better than March, but less good than it should be. Must improve in May.

Video Games: Bran has me addicted to games now dammit. I bet I lost a oodles and oodles of time to the DS. Plus he was trying to get me into a new game. And now in the last few days I am getting into the new game. Uh-oh.

So all in all, aside from work and my regularly scheduled events, ballet and band, I do believe those things can account for pretty much my entire month....hmm...that seems kinda pathetic.