true confessions

It's Friday morning! Time for another Company Girl Coffee. Welcome!

So...I'm exhausted. How about you? This week has been really draggy for me - one of those weeks when I feel like I'm moving underwater or something. My capacity this morning for intelligent, cohesive thought is somewhat limited. What follows is, essentially, a bullet-point list of what runs through my mind as I reflect on the past several days. Like stream of consciousness, but easier to read because it's punctuated.


Our Christmas tree, which has been bare for several days now, finally left our house last night. There is a trail of dried up pine needles showing the way to the car. You can sweep sidewalks, but you can't sweep gravel...

The puppy has decided that maybe she doesn't need to be housetrained after all.

Brian is almost off for his first of 3 weekends away, and I am dreading all that time alone with the dogs going to miss him.

I did all of the Small Things this week. Actually, I've done all of them this month. I'm pretty proud of that. This week's big task was setting up a housekeeping schedule. And I'm happy with mine. With the Small Things every day, the schedule to give me some overall structure, and the Flylady missions, I think I'm pretty well set up in the 'get stuff done around the house' category.

I am currently reading People of the Book. I have been reading it for more than a week, and I'm only about 120 pages in. I love it, but for some reason it is very slow reading for me.

I also finished a pair of socks and started a second. These are for a barter exchange with my college roommate - she bought tickets to a football game for us, and I am in return knitting her two pairs of socks. (I won't mention here that the game was in September and I am just now finishing the first pair. What can I say - I guess I was a little busy in the past few months.) I really liked the first pair I made, but it was a pretty challenging pattern. This second pattern is not as challenging, but the socks are man-socks so they'll be much bigger than I'm used to. The yarn colorway is called Ripe Banana and I love it - it is various shades of yellow with the occasional brown speck.

This weekend: I am looking forward to some down time - lots of knitting and lots of reading. I am also looking forward to some solid hours of making progress in the unpacking and getting settled departments. I don't know about you, but I've got a 2-foot stack of things to be filed/sorted/listed on eBay.

We'll see who wins - the grasshopper or the ant.


I might also let the dogs sleep on the bed with me.


How was your week? Do you have any plans for the weekend, fun or otherwise?

Weekend recap and Monday-Monday

Big things are happening at home.  This past weekend, Brian was ordained.  It's official - he is a Minister of Word and Sacrament, and more concern-worthy, I am a Minister's Wife.  I should probably take a moment to go through all my archives and remove every instance of the word 'hell' (all what, three of them?) - just in case.

After a nice dinner with Julia - the last NC friend on my list to see before we left - I drove down to Concord, NC to be with Brian and his family.  Brian had left for Colorado more than two weeks earlier, so it was a happy reunion.  Saturday was an early Thanksgiving meal with Brian's family and some very close family friends, topped off with a round of trick-or-treaters at the door.  Sunday, of course, had Brian's ordination.  We got in late last night and the general mood was one of contentedness and complete exhaustion.  Brian has a lot of things to do to get us ready to move, and I have made him several lists to help him - because that's what any good Minister's Wife would do.  Also, my mom came up last week and made a bunch of freezer meals for us, so we don't have to think about food.  Thanks, ma!

This will be my last Monday at work.  I think I am mostly done being sad about leaving - or at the very least, I am more excited than sad at this point.  I had a real cryfest last week and I've been focused on the mechanics of moving, ever since. 

Richmond, I love you, and I am sad to be leaving you.  Denver, you'd better be ready to step up.

We have begun the days-away countdown.  Five days.  I've thought about installing one of those little count down thingers on the blog, but who has the time to research those?

Tis the season for a jolly weekend recount!

An armadillo with a santa hat.  A pickle.  A gold leaf.  Six blue glass birds.  A glittery Waterford Santa.  Four gold bells and 2 silver bells.  A light blue miniature disco ball.  A firey Superman emblem.  Six rudolph-character jingle bells.  Gold stars.  White snowflakes.  A toaster.  The Star Ship Enterprise.  Six glass-blown dogs.  Lots of blue, white, silver and navy balls.

I love our Christmas tree!

We started decorating this weekend.  I have been somewhat lacking in the "Christmas Spirit" this year, what with being bogged down with worries and pains and no functioning bathtub and all.  So it was high time!  I managed to be done with work at precisely 5pm, so I could scuttle off with Brian to our favorite lawn-and-garden-shop-turned-Christmas-tree-lot before they closed at 5:30.  They're our favorites because they're close to us, they're a local family-operated business, they are SUPER friendly, and perhaps most importantly, they sell our beloved North Carolina fraser firs.  We picked up a real looker and set it up to stand naked in the house until this afternoon when I would have time to decorate.  Friday night ended up nice and quiet, just like we needed.

Saturday morning came and I had to go to work on some stuff.  A couple of nice high school volunteers came and rocked out a Cans for Habitat project with me, which was awesome.  Cans for Habitat benefits the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate here in Richmond.  They collect your empty aluminum cans and recycle them to raise funds.  Learn more here.  After all that finished up, I had to work on a bunch of stuff at the office.  After being there for a couple of hours, I got the inspiration to cut my hair, as it's been about 8 months since my last hair cut, I didn't (and still don't) have a functioning shower, and Saturday night was Calvin Ball so I wanted to have a fighting chance at looking decent in the hair department.

Calvin Ball was great.  I was expecting it to be another semi-lame seminary event where I got to sit on the outskirts and feel excluded, but it was actually a lot of fun.  Folks were in good, cheery, happy moods, and the DJ was more than half decent.  We had a great time.  And I had yet another chance to wear my bangin' cocktail dress.

Sunday was low-key.  We visited a small church not to far from here - we may end up teaching the youth sunday school class.  It was their Christmas Cantata, and everyone was so nice.  Then we came home and the tub got caulked, which means it will be in working order tomorrow.  Our friend Jessica came over to snag some books and hang out.  I got Christmas down from the attic and started distributing it across the house.  I didn't put up all our ornaments on the tree - I didn't feel the need to go all out this year.  And is it weird that we've only been married a year but we already have a few 'clutter' ornaments - ones that we don't like or want?  And what do you do with these?  Any opinions?