Paying Attention

When I was a little girl, my parents bought me a mini trampoline. It sat in our family room and I would bounce and bounce and bounce for hours on end. I bounced while we watched TV. I bounced while I talked with my mom. My mom says my grandma once asked, "Doesn't she drive you crazy with the bouncing?" My mom responded, "Not as crazy as she would drive me if she wasn't bouncing." Apparently I had a lot of energy. One of my mom's nicknames for me is "Tigger".

Nowadays, I sit at a desk for 10 or 11 hours a day, staring at my computer. The entire day, one of my legs is bouncing away. Some friends and I jokingly say we have "mild ADD." My brain is always multi-tasking, and my body is bouncing with energy to just DO something. I've noticed it helps to have two things going on in order for me to focus. One thing has to be mildly distracting, and then I can focus on the more enveloping matter.

For example, knitting. I watch TV and knit. I listen to podcasts and knit. I talk with friends and knit. Like with the trampoline, my body needs the slight distraction in order for my brain to truly focus.

I had a roommate with anxiety issues and she would knit at church just to keep from completely jumping out of her skin. I admit that I have taken to knitting at church. I stopped doing it during Sacrament Meeting, but during Sunday School I knit, with my scriptures open to the section we're talking about. I participate, I read aloud. Frankly, I think my anxious roommate was onto something - I pay attention better when my hands are occupied.

In the past, when I've knit in Sacrament Meeting, I have found my attention completely focused on the speaker. I glance up at regular intervals so the speaker knows I'm listening. When I'm sitting there with my hands neatly folded in my lap, I get so distracted. I read the program a million times. I start paying a LOT of attention to the kids in the pews around me. My mind wanders and I find I miss big chunks of the talks. I might be staring at the person who's speaking, but I've missed his or her words completely.

There was an article in this week's Ravelry newsletter where the author talks about not knitting in front of company she invites to her house lest she be thought rude. Well, she learned a few years ago that in reality, she pays better attention to what's going on around her and to the conversation at hand when her hands are occupied with her knitting. The comments to the article consist of a bunch of people chiming in with "Me too!"

I'm tempted to say it's just an excuse we knitters invent to justify more time knitting. But having read that article and the comments, and knowing that my two biggest knitting friends complain of anxiety and attention issues anyway, maybe the reality is the people who are drawn to knitting, and those other activities that result in a mild distraction from what's going around them, are those people with the "mild ADD". We just need to take the edge off by occupying our hands and then our attention is completely yours, whether you believe it or not.

Any other knitters? How's your mild ADD?

Vote On My New Sweater

I've decided to take the plunge and make myself an actual honest-to-goodness sweater. I've been making baby sweaters, but haven't made an adult-sized one yet. Last year I bought a few skeins of a nice dark terracotta-colored yarn that would be perfect for an Autumn sweater.

So which one should I make?

Green Gable
February Fitted Sweater
Darcy

Vintage 3-Hour Sweater (which I would make with 3/4-length sleeves)

Marriage is Hard Sometimes

Well, I wound up taking back all the red stuff and getting the spa bathroom elements after all. Our friend Rachel came over for a little bit Friday night and I asked for her opinion on the shower curtain and the red.

Her first thought was sometimes red, white and black can seem a little harsh and the tan might help to soothe the palette a bit. We hung up the shower curtain and my (and Rachel's) initial impression was that it really closed off the bathroom and made it look super small all of a sudden. And it's not a small bathroom.

So I decided to go with the spa plan, take the towels back to Kohl's and get a white shower curtain. My plan was to do this Saturday morning and just kind of do it without making a big deal about it. However, Jason wanted to come along because he also thought we could go to Lowe's and look at backyard and other house necessities*.

Then he discovered that I was returning the red towels. I really want to be fair in all of this (because I am very concerned about "fair". Some would say this is a Libra thing, but I credit my INFJ nature more). But I also want our house to look nice. Because it's a beautiful house. Thus, I don't really want the Homer Simpson action figure in the dining room. Or the dorm room octopus lamp with the monkeys hanging from it in the family room. Since the office is basically Jason's domain, I figure it's a fantastic place for his toys to go.

But he still looks completely wounded and becomes completely disengaged from the process when I say "no" to anything like that. And I felt like that's what happened Saturday morning at Kohl's when I said I was returning the towels. At least that was my perception, whether or not it was his actual intent. Which he told me later it wasn't. I think it shocks him sometimes when I take things so much to heart.

I explained that I tried the red and I didn't like it so I thought I would go with the more soothing palette. I love red, actually (we have red sheets for Fall and I have several red dish towels and red potholders). But I also like the medium teal I wound up buying. Jason said "Whatever..." and I felt like I had stabbed him right in his red-loving heart.

So I bought the medium teal towels, and a white seersucker shower curtain, but already my headache was starting. Then we went to Wal-Mart (which is always kind of a horrifying experience anyway) and I got some stuff for the Young Women for camp prep. Jason told me he could have gotten all of that much cheaper online if I had just let him know earlier.

Basically, I just felt really stressed out and I wound up with a migraine. Jason felt really bad about stressing me out. This is partly my problem, I know. I want to be fair. I also don't want to disappoint anyone, particularly Jason.

Anyway, Jason assured me he really didn't care about the bathroom, he was just expressing a preference. I guess I take his preferences too much to heart because I want things to be fair. "Fair" is a key word in my life.

Note to self: need to relax and be ok with the fact that sometimes Jason and I will have different opinions. Sometimes or often, as the case may be. Totally not worth a migraine.


*Like hinges. For some reason there are 2 cabinets, 1 shutter and 1 door that have broken hinges. The last tenants must have liked swinging on the doors or something.

Knits

This is my niece Anya in the sweater and hat I knit for her just because I'm her aunt and I get to do stuff like that.


A full shot of the sweater and hat before I sent them:

Decorating Part 2

You may think I'm spending too much time thinking about the bathroom, but it's really the only area where I'm going to have any creativity in this new house. Most of the other rooms are pretty well established. We have furniture and rugs. The walls are painted nice colors. I talked myself out of buying new guest room bedding because the stuff we have is perfectly serviceable and the blue and white of the things we have will go fabulously with the light yellow walls of the guest bedroom. Basically, the bathroom is the only almost completely blank palette.

So I bought a shower curtain, but I was thinking about taking it back until Jason saw it and said, "Oh, that looks nice."

As I mentioned, the bathroom is mainly white, with black accents in the tiles. I got the red towels, right? We already have a tan bathmat, which I was considering getting rid of and replacing with a red or white one, but then I found a shower curtain that is horizontal striped red, tan, brown and white.

I thought, "Red and tan! I can make the towels work with the bathmat!"

Then I got it home and remembered the black tiles.

Then I remembered I have a small wall hanging of Tournee du Chat Noir (for Tiny, our chat noir). Red. Check. Black. Check. Tan. Check.

Maybe I can pull it all together after all.

I'm going to run with this plan, take pictures, and ask for commentary. But what's your gut reaction? Is it ok to have tan and brown in the same bathroom as black? Will it just look messy?

Crock Pot Cooking

If, like me, you are loathe to cook anything that warms up your kitchen right now, I just posted a couple of great Crock Pot dinners over at Bee's Knees Recipes.

Update to Decorating

So when I mentioned I might take back the red towels and opt for a more spa-like feel, Jason objected. He likes red a lot (as do I, but I was kind of warming up to a spa bathroom). He also does not have the warm feelings about aquas and teals that I do.

Well, I figure I can go with red since he did give up his beloved world map shower curtain. Marriage is all about give and take.

Decorating

I'm trying to decide what to do with our bathroom. I talked Jason out of using the broken cartoony world map shower curtain* that we used in the old apartment, but I'm not exactly sure what to get instead.

*For those of you who saw it, yes, I know, the world map shower curtain was interesting AND educational, but I kind of want something a little more classy in the new house. Plus, it was ripped. And the tape I used to fix it was ripped. It was time to let it go.

I would also like to note that in the downstairs half bath we have a monkey trash can, monkey face bath mat, and just today I bought a palm tree with monkeys soap dispenser to put in the bathroom. Jason loves monkeys. So you see I'm not so much of a decorating harpy as you might think.

So the upstairs bathroom is entirely black and white. There are tiny black and white tiles on the floor and black and white tiles on the walls. The sink and bathtub and little cabinets are white.


Basically I'm torn with what direction to take it. I originally thought red, which is kind of a classic look with the black and white. We already have these white towels with red stripes and today Kohl's had some dark red towels on sale that I picked up (55% off, plus an extra 15% off. Love Kohl's!).

However, I also saw another color at Kohl's that I like a lot - kind of a medium teal shade - that makes me think of spas and relaxing and ocean breezes. I'm kind of a sucker for aquas and teals, but I love dark red too.

In my search at Target and Kohl's today, I didn't really see any shower curtains that went with the red towels. I know something will turn up eventually. But maybe I should go with the teal and make it more of a spa bathroom with one of those white waffle-fabric shower curtains.

These are the tough decisions.

End of An Era

Last night, Jason and I finished cleaning out the old apartment.

Finally!

I honestly didn't think it would take so long to get everything out of there. But between trying to get the new place organized a bit, my inability to work on it very much because of work and YW obligations in the evening, and Jason going out of town, we were only able to work on it in fits and starts.

It's done now, though, and the feelings are bittersweet. Jason moved there almost 4 years ago. I visited the week after he signed the lease and spent a day cleaning the place for him (because I was that awesome of a girlfriend). I also found out where the nearest Target was and went there to pick up a shower curtain, a dish drainer and some other necessities for the place, only getting moderately lost in Providence along the way (these were the days before GPS).

A year and a half later, we got married and I moved in. We threw parties and housed various of Jason's family members over the last 2 1/2 years. We enjoyed fires in our fireplace. We watched the snow fall while we snuggled cozily inside. We traipsed over to the Brown Observatory next door on Tuesday nights to peer through old telescope. We lost a big old smelly tree. We decorated for Christmas.

Crummy neighbors notwithstanding, it really was a great place. We've grown out of it, in a variety of ways, but it will always be the first place we lived in together. We are both thrilled with our new place, but it was a sad moment last night when we turned off the lights and walked down the stairs for the last time.

View from the living room of the park in front of the Observatory
Jason shoveling snow
Jason and his dad getting ready to carve the turkey (or wreck havoc)

Tiny on Jason's mom's lap in front of the fire

Lovely fire in the fireplace

Jason's birthday party

My birthday party

Christmas mantle

Aren't We Done Yet?

My body is so sore and worn out. I don't think there was one night last week when I got to bed before 12:30 AM. Then I woke up and got to work early every day because I was so wired. Then I worked hard all day because we're busy and came home to pack and clean and move and pack some more.

Tuesday and Wednesday nights we moved over all our fragile boxes. Jason moved some stuff over during the day on Wednesday too. Thursday was the big moving day and Jason stayed home and supervised the movers. It was so great of him. By the end of the night his feet were so sore because he just stood all day. We unpacked a little and I made the bed so we could sleep in it Thursday night.

We has a little disaster Thursday night when I ran a load of wash and we realized when the laundry room flooded that somehow the water output had been pulled out of the drain pipe. We were a little panicky and called the landlady and she said she would come right over. Then we realized we could probably get most of the mess cleaned up ourselves and called her back to tell her not to come, but she insisted. She, her husband, and her college-age stepson came over to clean up and hook the washing machine up correctly. It's nice to know they're so responsive.

In the meantime, we realized we had no gas. Also, we found out we have a gas dryer. So I rewashed the clothes, but then couldn't dry them. This also meant no cooking or hot water. Friday, Jason called the gas company and even though they happily switched the bill over to Jason's name when he originally called to set it up, no one bothered to notice that the gas had been completely shut off when the last tenant moved out in May, and would need to be manually turned on. We get gas tomorrow (Monday) morning. In the meantime, I have taken two very cold showers. Hypothetically, I could go to the other place (which is what Jason has done), but since I have to be to work early and don't want to wake up any earlier than necessary, I would rather suck it up in a cold shower.

Friday I planned to leave work around 2 so I could get home and unpack, but, as usually happens, I wound up being too busy. I finally left a little before 5, which is at least a bit early. I unpacked a bunch of the kitchen on Friday.

Saturday we unpacked ALL DAY LONG. Seriously, we woke up and I ran over to Dunkin Donuts in the shopping center just down the street for breakfast sandwiches (Dear Dunks employees, how did you manage to severely mess up BOTH sandwich orders?), then we started unpacking. I finished the kitchen (although Jason tells me he spied a couple more kitchen boxes in a closet that we forgot about), we arranged the family room furniture, built Jason's desk, and put away a LOT of books and clothes. About 8 hours after those mediocre Dunkin Donuts sandwiches, we went out to the Texas Raodhouse for dinner (and realized we go there too much when our waitress recognized us). We came home and unpacked some more, finally calling it a night a bit before 1.

Today we had an early church meeting that we both had to attend and wound up spending about 5 hours at church. Then we came home and watched the World Cup, because that seemed like the thing to do. I was rooting for Spain, so, yay! I also kind of slept through about half the game. But that was ok since the big show happened at the very end and I was awake for that.

After the game, we went back to the old apartment to finish. Jason still needed to finish packing up his closet and a couple other things. So he packed and I cleaned and cleaned. And sweated. It was only in the low 80s, but it was very muggy. Unpacking in our new house with AC has spoiled me already. We're not quite done at the old place, but pretty close. It's definitely cleaner, thanks to me. Our cat created many cat fur dust bunnies.

Tonight we're exhausted and sore and going to bed early. My knee and hip hurt a bit, and I think I pulled something in my lower back. Jason has similar complaints. I'm just grateful we had movers for the big stuff. Those guys are miracle workers.

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to a busy day at work. I brought some work home for the weekend, but didn't get to it at all. There is just too much to do around here. So I'll need to get into the office early again. Someday I'll get on a normal sleep schedule...

In Non Moving-Related News

OK, to be honest, I have no non moving-related news. It's moving all the time at our house!

But I just have to write this quick little note about how pleased I am with the relationships our Young Women at church are developing with one another. They all go to different schools and are various ages, but they have fun together and are planning an excursion to the beach tomorrow. (I'm Facebook friends with them so I get all the updates. I told them they should pass off their camp swimming requirements while they're there.)

Anyway, I just love that they're such friends (even though there is some DRAMA! sometimes). I know these friendships with other girls with similar values will help them stay grounded.

Scamaroo

I'm trying to sell my dresser before we move on Thursday. This morning I received a super enthusiastic email in response to my Craig's List posting. I wrote back and sent my phone number, telling them to call me to arrange to come see it. This is what I got in response:

Thanks for the prompt response, I am quite satisfied with the condition .I am also interested and I will like to make an instant purchase, so kindly end the advert on Craigslist, I do not mind adding an extra $25 for you to close the advert on craigslist so that I can be rest assured that I am the prospective buyer, I would have loved to come take a look but I am a very busy woman I am very sure you understand. I will also want you to know that I will be paying via Certified Check, and it will be sent to you via courier service due to the distance. You don't need to bother about the shipment, as that has been taken care of...... So I will need you to provide me with the following information to facilitate the mailing of the check.

1. Full Name on the check
2. Address where payment will be sent to not p.o.box (because my courier service does not deliver to p.o box)
3. City
4. State
5. Zip Code
6. Phone Number

Once again, I will like to remind you that you will not be responsible for shipping as I will have my mover come over as soon as you have cashed the check .

Have a nice day.

Of course it's a scam, and Jason and I were trying to figure out what the angle is. I Googled one of the odder phrases and discovered that in this particular scam, they send you a check in an amount much greater than the amount they're going to pay and claim it's a mistake. You're supposed to deposit the check and send the extra money back to them via a wire transfer. Then, of course, their check bounces and you're out some money.

But this email was so obvious. Total overkill for a $70 OBO dresser. Note to scammers: if you're going to run an email scam, at least make it a little bit believable.