boogaj

Thank god for coffee

So, this morning I woke up at 4am from a nightmare. I'm a pretty good sleeper, but if I wake up after about 3am I can rarely get back to sleep -- especially when my back is bothering me, which it is.

I lay in bed, trying desperately to think calming thoughts so I could get in another hour or two of sleep, but all I kept picturing was my dream. In it we were at a pool -- probably on vacation. It was me, Pete, Maddie and another younger child which was mine (Maddie is my only child in real life). At some point, I look at the pool and the youngest child is gone. I freak out and start screaming for help, only to see the child on the bottom of the pool. At that moment, I awoke.

Scary, right? 

I Googled the dream and supposedly the death of a child in a dream means that your inner child might be dying (I don't think so), or that you feel your child is growing up and doesn't need you anymore (possibly -- Maddie is 14), or that part of your potential is dying (hmmmm), or that you are getting old and transitioning from middle aged to old age (I certainly hope not!).

Whatever the meaning of this nightmare is, I am loving coffee today... and Advil. Bad sleep never improves a bad back.

Making a List

Holidays make me crazy. I'm very much a creature of habit and I'm very happy when I'm on a regular schedule. So in order to cope, I've taken to writing lists before any holiday or other event that might mess with my calm. After taking this photo, I realized that my initial holiday list was populated entirely with food concerns -- what to have for Christmas dinner, our family progressive dinner, Christmas morning and other various holiday goodies.

In other holiday news, the tree is up and decorated. Of course there was a last minute problem with the lights that resulted in Pete & I running all over town looking for replacements. I'm sure this doesn't happen every year, but it sure feels like it does. I'm happy with the new lights and they have a 2 year warranty, so I suppose next year the light situation won't be a problem.

Random Assortment of Things

So, yesterday I wrote about my latest internet TV obsession, and today I'm going to write about guitar a little bit. As you can see, it's going to take me some time to get back in the flow of things. Until then I'll just ramble until I find the track.

The past 2 years, I've been taking guitar lessons, which I absolutely love. My teacher is great and I feel like I've learned a lot. Some months I'm crazy about playing, but every once in a while I hit a little bit of a wall and feel like I'm in a funk. Now is one of those times.

When I'm feeling this way, guitar lessons are a great thing because they make me pick up the guitar and push through. After all, in a week or two I'll start learning a new song and be obsessed again. 

That photo is my latest guitar acquisition -- a Taylor GS Mini. It's my first acoustic and while I'm finding it more difficult to play than my Fender (which is an electric), I think it's helping me build strength, which has been a big hurdle for me.

Now I better go figure out which song I want to learn next.

 

Co-Optitude

I am currently obsessed with Geek & Sundry -- especially Co-Optitude, which is a show where a brother and sister play retro video games. During many episodes, I have laughed so hard that I've cried.

This all goes back to my love of video games, which probably began with the Atari 2600 I had as a child. From there I moved on to programming (very) basic games on my TRS-80, and playing games on the computer. When I hit High school, things started to get good. There was the Nintendo NES, Sega Genesis and eventually the SNES and GameBoy. I was addicted.

Co-optitude brings me back to those 8-bit days in a hilarious way. And there's Felicia Day -- love her. (I've also seen her on TableTop and The Guild, which I'll probably talk about at some point in the future.)

As you can see from the photos, the love of video gaming continues in our house. In fact, Maddie loves buying old video games and has been collecting old console systems (as well as new). These photos are from her game "expo" which she created earlier this year.

Back to Writing?

Inspired by Claudia, I've decided to dust off this old blog and commit to writing on a regular basis. We'll see how this goes.

I started this blog way back in 2002 when Maddie was nearly 2 years old and I was finally finding a little free time for knitting and crafting again after the craziness of the whole baby thing. Over the years it morphed into a lot of things and I started a lot of side projects on the internet (including Black Sheep Bags, my podcast, the Pincushion Challenge, The Chocolate Blog, and many more.) 

At this point, I think I need to land in one place and write about whatever I'm obsessed with at the moment. (And I often become obsessed with things -- it's my nature.) 

If you still visit my website -- Hi! Glad you stuck around. I hope to get re-acquainted with you again!

(Oh, the photo? That's a pile of my dish scrubbies. Free pattern at Ravelry and on the blog.)