You better watch out....

I am already thinking very much about Christmas.

It started way back in July I believe when I typed up a plan for what I needed to accomplish each month in order to have a bunch of crafty presents. 

But inevitably, as most things go, I think that once again I’m being overambitious and I’m feeling behind. 

Sometimes I feel like I still have tons of time before the holiday’s and I shouldn’t be freaking out yet. But then I count the months and realize I’m at 2.5. Yikes! 

In other news I can’t help but plan how I would want to decorate “my” new house for Christmas. But that is boatloads of speculation so….maybe.

Smile!

Strolling through the World Show Case at Epcot I was enjoying looking at all of the neat architecture and making Bran pose for pictures.

Entering the Italy pavilion I noticed a man with a camera with a giant lens on one of those one-legged-not-actually-tri-pod things. And I noted to myself that it really would be a nice place (the whole park really) for photographers to come and take pictures.

Bran and I moved over to the water front and were taking pictures on the neat little Italian bridges. As I was posing and Bran taking pictures of me I noticed that the photographer seemed to be snapping pictures that seemed like they could be including me – or maybe he was just aiming to my left, it was hard to say. Then Bran and I exchanged places and then, as he grumbled about the heat and walking too much, I sent him over to a farther bridge to pose.

As we was making his way over a young woman approached me. She explained that they were taking some kind of publicity shots of people taking pictures of each other and that the photographer had gotten some good ones of my “husband” taking pictures of me. If we would just sign these waivers we could get free pins. Obviously I was game, and called after Bran to make him come all the way back. I also corrected the woman that he was my boyfriend, although her repeated use of the title “husband” had totally amused me (while also being ridiculously weird).

We gave them our names and where we are from. They had us pose again with Bran now faking to be taking pictures of me. We got free pins and then were along on our way. Whence I proceeded to make Bran go back to the far bridge for my planned picture.

It was weird and awesome at the same time. I totally hope that they use a picture of us somewhere because I think that’s pretty fun. But then I also realize the chances of me ever realizing it are approximately non-existent – which is very sad.

Altogether highly amusing.

Togetherness

Disney world was, as it should be, magical. And even as I would get tired and cranky and sometimes unfairly short with him, I know I enjoyed every moment of being with Bran.

While we were down there we hit the one year anniversary of our First Date. We didn't do anything special really. But the whole trip was special so that was easily more than enough. Going into the trip I had already had the idea that I wanted to find him a gift while down there to be an anniversary gift. Because I figured it would also be a good reminder of our time together. And when we talked about it he first said that he'd gotten me something back home but didn't bring it because he knew I'd likely go through his suitcase. [Yup, he knows me. Although I only went through it a very little bit when I was holding the last threads of hope that he'd be able to condense into one suitcase.] So that was cute of him, but he ended up in my "lets get something here" camp before long.

However, then the awkwardness (for me at least) began. The problem arises because he is so apt to buy anything he wants for himself and I am so anti-spending any money at all. We're very tricky people. Luckily at some point we had the idea of both getting watches for multiple reasons generally centering around the fact that we are both dorks. (And perfectly proud of it.)

But anyways I completely wandered from the topic I wanted to discuss.

Now that we're back home I miss him quite intensely. We have a few things going against us. I work a pretty normal M-F 8:30-4:30 schedule but with the season starting soon I'll be loosing some weekends. Plus I like to keep busy so I do have certain activities, like band, which take up one evening each week. He has a ridiculous changes every week (It's like a 12 or 15 week rotation) schedule which can be pretty much one of 3 things. Regular work day, 6-6, all waking day, 6-10ish, all evening 6am-6pm. This sucks because things generally don't line up well which is aided by the fact that he doesn't do stuff on the day before an early wake up (a lot of them). And to top everything off he went and got sick immediately upon our return (likely from one of our fellow plane-riders). Which I am now tetering on the edge of (I just had to see him on Tuesday).

I used to think that I was quite the loner and wanted to have my own space all the time. But as time goes by I'm either changing, or finding that I was wrong. A girl can get very lonely being all on her own after having spent a rather blissful 24/7 (actually it was like 8 or 9 by the time we parted) with someone special.

Maybe I should convince him to move-in together.

Or maybe he had a dreadful time and is now trying to get away from me.

Hmm.....

Here’s what I want to accomplish in August:

1. Ride bike at least once a week. I ought to be doing more but hopefully this will be a good place to start.

2. At least 2 Mario Squares every day. I must get back on this bandwagon in order to keep up with my Christmas present plan (totally must explain this in another post).

3. 2 knit, 3 crochet afghan squares. So far I’ve been keeping up with this crazy output so here we’ll go again.

4. Finish current spinning project and continue with same fleece (Zeke) to total 800 yards of laceweight yarn. This may kill me but I’d really really really like to see it happen. And after last month I know if I really put my nose to the grind I can do as much as 300 yards start to finish in a week.

5. Read WoT book 8. Actually I started this last night and I’m quite willing to throw myself completely into another book, but must exercise restraint and accomplish other goals as well. The good news is this book is a measly 700ish pages and the font isn’t particularly tiny. Woot!

So my goals really are rather stagnant every month but ah well it’s helping me meet my larger goals.

July Results

Here’s what I accomplished in July:

TdF – I pretty much rocked the first ¾ of Le Tour. But alas when it got down to the wire (last 3 days) I was too distracted with camping prep and actually camping to finish my goal. Alas I really barely even started the last part. But the endeavor really was quite a success as I did in fact finish 2 UFO’s, over ½ complete a Christmas yarn, and learn to spin awesome laceweight.

5 afghan squares – Actually the last one was finished on August 1st, but eh close enough for me. I really need to spread out these suckers and take a photo. There’s a lot of them really.

WoT book 7 – Hooray for past half way! This month was particularly good because I had like no reading time during the TdF so I ended up saving most all of the book (600+ pages) for camping. Then I spent glorious hours just sitting and reading and being fully immersed the fantasy world. I’ve not had the opportunity to do that with a book in quite a while. Really I ought to get back to it methinks.

Doldrums of Summer

Maybe it’s having come off of such a beautiful relaxing week last week…

Maybe it’s the hot sticky humid weather…

Maybe it’s my job…

Maybe it’s not seeing Bran for a full week…

Maybe it’s having crammed too much into July…

But I am just entirely devoid of motivation. It’s mainly killing me at work. Everyday it is such a battle to wake up. Then I stress about work. At the office I struggle through the hours. And even at home when I normally perk up I’m really just moving through the motions of my various craft projects and activities.

I don’t think I’ve even washed a single dish since returning home…..that’s kinda disgusting of me….

Last week.

There were a couple of things wrong with my camping trip last weekend...

I had bad thoughts in my head that wouldn’t go away. 

I was feeling physically off for a large number of the days. 

On the last night a bunch of interloper’s invaded my normally secluded campground. 

Luckily they were easily outweighed by the good things… 

I was able to clear my head of most of its normal worries. 

The weather spent most of the time in the 70’s with only 2ish days of rain. 

Most day’s we had the entire camp ground to ourselves. 

Bran likes camping. 

I got to have good quality alone time, free of distractions, with him and we still like each other. 

Bran learned to grill food. 

I was seriously sucked into the 700ish pages of WoT that I needed to finish which made finishing exceptionally easy and fun, plus I really want to read more now.

Camping is, has been, and quite possibly always will be one of my favorite activities. The opportunity to get away from it all and sit quietly in nature is one that I look forward to every year.