#98

Despite my failure to consistently update here, I have been faithfully plugging away at my list. Today I will talk about #98: Volunteer.

As of April, I am a Certified Counselor Advocate for the Sexual Assault Crises Services in New Britain. Being able to do this was actually one of the major reasons I quit my job back in September - this was something I had wanted to do for at least three years and just could not make it work around my manager's schedule. They only offer two training sessions a year, so I started taking classes in February and got my certification in April, and have since successfully completed actual volunteer shifts!

Although I am once again unemployed, which really sucks, I am still glad that I had made this a priority. Last summer I had a conversation with a grad student who was interviewing CT knitting feminists and one of the questions she asked me was if I had any "feminist guilt." While it wasn't exactly guilt, I did feel hypocritical that there was something that I really cared about but hadn't found a way yet to be involved. (Not to mention that retail management is totally unsatisfying, unfulfilling, soul killing work. At least for me. It seems to be right for some people.)

In short, although I don't have a job and we are totally broke, at least I finally have a little bit more meaning in my life and it is definitely worth it.

So last time I promised you a vacation recap. If you haven't seen my photos on either facebook or flickr, I highly suggest you check it out! So, vacation was an absolute blast. We started our vacation in Tucson, where we stayed with my sister and her husband. We flew in on Monday afternoon and stayed until Friday morning. We walked around downtown, visited the desert museum and a Spanish mission. We spent one night out to celebrate my sister and my birthdays, hitting up Plush and The Shanty on Fourth Ave. And of course, I got to meet Frida, my sister's dog, and although she may not be photogenic, she is super cute and extremely lovable.

Friday morning Paul-John and I rented a car and drove to California. After about six hours, we stopped in San Diego and walked around Balboa park. We thought about doing the zoo, or walking around downtown, but decided we didn't have a lot of time and would rather do one thing really well than try to squeeze in too much. It was really just a long pit stop so we would miss traffic heading towards L.A. After we left, we only had about 2 hours left before we got to our friend Mike's! He is getting his PhD at UC Irvine and lives on campus in the graduate housing. That night, we drove to a beach and drank some Trader Joe's beer, and I got to touch the Pacific for the first time. Saturday we went to L.A. We first headed towards Hollywood, and when we got there, we realized it was the day before the Oscars, which was neat. We walked around the Chinese Theater and Kodak Theater and got to see all the stars on the ground and the footprints and handprints. We also went to Griffith Observatory, drove around Beverly Hills, went to Ameoba Records, and went to a cemetery. We were going to walk around Venice Beach, but when we got there it was raining pretty hard so we just stayed in the car. Sunday we walked around Huntington Beach and Laguna Beach. Sunday and Monday were more relaxed, and we left Tuesday morning to head back for home!

I think when I was originally writing the list, the reason I added "take a real vacation" in addition to going to AZ and CA was probably just because I hadn't taken a real vacation in quite some time. (to me, a real vacation is a week. You may remember that we went to Newport last November, but that was a weekend. Doesn't count.) Our last vacation was our honeymoon in June '08! I took some time off when we bought the house, but less than a week, and it was spent painting and packing, etc. This vacation was well overdue and we had a great time!

One month!

I knew I had been sort of neglecting this blog, but when I logged in I was stunned to find it had been a whole month. I suppose it is good that time has been going faster these days - those two months of unemployment and following months of working 15 hours a week were not good for my soul. If I were independently wealthy it would be a different story, but unfortunately, its not.

I just did a quick rundown on my list, and I have six things to cross off! To be fair, one was blogged but just never crossed off. Here are two of them:

#10: Cook lobster. Paul-John and I did a homemade surf-n-turf for Valentine's Day this year. I realized I underestimated my squeamishness. It was probably the first time in my entire life I was glad we (also) had steak for dinner.

#49: Knit a lace kerchief. kerchief is just not a word I like, so I've been saying scarf. I knit a beautiful small triangle with a feather and fan pattern using 2 skein of Noro Silk Garden Sock yarn. I love it and wear it all the time! I am feeling kind of lazy, so if you aren't on Ravelry and would like to see it, its on my flickr page.

For next time, it will be 87, 96, and 97, which was one big trip. (Again, feel free to check out flickr or facebook for photos!) After going through the list I am unsure of why I thought "take a real vacation" needed to be something separate from those two trips, but whatever. Stay tuned!

I had set some time aside this past weekend for updating but was foiled when I dropped my just-poured cup of coffee right on top of the modem Saturday morning. It was fixed Sunday afternoon, but by that time Paul-John had just come home from his week-long business trip so I wasn't interested in spending too much time on the computer.


I have managed to check one more item off my list, which is to get a library card. Ridiculously easy and really doesn't require much more to say than that - I am realizing that some of these items really don't deserve their own blog post. This means I have also started on reading ten books. A lot of my goals on this list are really just ways of measuring larger and more abstract goals. My desired end result is not to just read ten books, period, but to get back into the habit of reading regularly, but to put that on the list would be hard to measure. So ten books it is. I have always loved reading for pleasure but I find it hard to make time for it because a lot of sitting down time is usually spent on crafts and I need to find a way to be able to balance the two.


Speaking of crafts, the past two weeks have been rather slow. While Paul-John was gone I thought I would whip up a couple potholders because we only have two and they are really quite gross. Potholder #1 is two layers of crocheted pentagons and it is so thick is is almsot too difficult to grab something with it. One layer won't work because of the gaps between clusters. Since all I have is worsted weight cotton, I figured I could just make a second one out of two layers of knit fabric. I think it'll turn out fine, alhough I am not sure if I will finish it because there is almost nothing worse than knitting a rectangle of garter stitch. As for the sewing front, no progress has been made yet because Mike has been staying in the craft room for the past week and a half. He moves out this weekend, and I plan on making some progress there as well soon.

There are a couple really major things on my list that I have been working on, but I don't want to share until things have progressed a little further. But I am very excited about them.

#75

It has felt good to finish Paul-John's hat and to work a bit more on the hexagon afghan this past week. I have a tendency to have a lot of things in progress and am not as good at finishing everything in a timely manner. I have really been procrastinating on the sewing front mainly because I find it so intimidating - it is a skill that is going to take a lot of practice on my part before I feel comfortable. But I bought a ton of fabric and a book, and I've been wearing mainly two skirts to work everyday, and I was feeling so good about finishing and making real progress on everything else, so I decided I just had to get this done. At least one skirt.

Not bad, right? I did make a couple sacrifices for this skirt. Initially I wanted to do an invisible zipper, but decided that it would be OK to do an elastic waist the first time around - less pressure to have the measurements exactly right. I also initially wanted to do a lining, but realized that if I am wearing a slip and dark tights everyday it may not be worth the extra hassle. The process was time consuming but fairly easy - I think the worst part was while I was pinking the raw edges after I had seamed everything I cut through the seam twice, and at least that was an easy fix.

Overall I'm very pleased with the result and that is mainly because I wore it and it didn't fall apart, which honestly was a huge confidence boost. I just have this fear that anything I sew will fall apart, is that weird? It definitely has gotten me much more excited about sewing many more clothes in the future.

#50

I am starting to feel like a broken record, but truth be told life is still hectic 'round here and it looks like it may stay that way for a while. Paul-John's dad has been in town since just before Christmas, mainly doing work on his aunt's house. This weekend he helped us do some rewiring at our house. He and Paul-John grounded a bunch of outlets, put a motion detector light outside our mudroom, and some other random stuff to make our wiring safer. Over the summer we hope to have him back so we can completely replace the knob and tube wiring in our basement.

This past week we also were able to go out to dinner with my dad, who was in CT for a week because he just accepted a job offer at the company he used to work for before he moved to Arizona! He is back in AZ right now, but starts his new job in just two weeks. In addition to having my parents back in the state, I am really looking forward to helping out with the house-hunting process because getting to go inside so many houses can be a lot of fun.

And lastly, starting next week, one of our friends will be staying with us for the two weeks while he is between apartments. With all of this going on I really wanted to finish one of the projects I was working on. I finally finished knitting my second first mitten sans thumb and my changes worked great and it fits perfectly (those interested can see the mittens on my flickr page). I cast on for the second mitten, but I must say I'm mittened out right now. I took about a week break between the first two, so I think I will do the same here. Knitting on tiny needles can be tiring. So I finally finished Paul-John's hat! He has one hat I made about four years ago and it is starting to get a little worn. Last year I made two failed attempts at knitting a stranded hat for him, but hat #1 was ugly and hat #2 was too small. This year I decided his hat would have ribbing all the way up so it had to fit and would be made in chunky yarn so it wouldn't take me all winter like last year. It turned out great - its thick, warm and soft and the colors are perfectly Paul-John.

#56

I officially changed my address, and it was crazy super easy. Who knew? Paul-John swears he did it for both of us when we moved, but I never got anything with those yellow stickers on it, and I wanted to make absolutely sure I get all my tax information in a timely manner.

#18

I am officially no longer unemployed! It is a really great feeling to finally be working again. For two weeks, I have been working as a part-time secretary at the Chabad House in West Hartford. It's a small office, with three rabbis, one full-time secretary, and a guy who does payables. The first week was really awkward, but on Monday one of the rabbis told me I was fitting in really well which gave me a much needed confidence boost.

All in all, the job seems to be exactly what I need right now. It is easy, but I am also learning a lot about Orthodox Jewish culture. It also gives me enough free time that I will either be able to go back to school next semester (yikes!) or be able to really start volunteering somewhere. This job isn't what I want to do for the rest of my life, but it is going to give me the time I need in order to take the next step.

#6

This weekend Paul-John and I quite unexpectedly were able to cross something else off the list: #6, buy a piece of art. The two major things our house is lacking to make it feel really homey are curtains, which I am slowly plugging away at, and stuff hanging on the walls. While we do have some photos and mirrors and clocks we want to hang, currently we have nothing hanging on any wall in any room of the house.

We spent the weekend in Newport and Saturday afternoon we walked around downtown with the intention of only buying Christmas presents, which were able to buy a couple. One art store that we went into was having such a big clearance we knew we had to buy a couple things for ourselves. Here is the larger one that Paul-John picked out for the living room:

The second painting we put in our downstairs bathroom.

The frame we picked out really goes great with the tile.

#58

This weekend Paul-John and I tackled #58: Paint and furnish the mudroom. This was a fairly easy project: painting a 5'x5' room doesn't take any time, and we had bought the coat hooks and chalkboard back when we had a zillion home depot and lowe's gift cards. The only thing that's missing is a place to put shoes, but since that really only requires cash and all the hard work is done, I'm marking this off as complete.

We based our color choice on the stone floor. (Also, please note, it is very hard to photograph such a small room well.)

#99

I have officially completed task #99 on my list! Many of the tasks on my list are long term projects but I really wanted to complete at least one the first week. Somehow Friday afternoon I convinced Paul-John that we should leave our house at 2am that night and drive to Vermont. We took naps in the evening, woke up at 1, and were on the road by 2. I drove up and Paul-John napped for the entire ride. I have never driven through the night like that before so it felt very adventurous. I thought that I would be nervous about falling asleep, but it was the multiple "moose crossing" signs that really freaked me out.

My initial plan was to drive up Smuggler's Notch and watch the sunrise from there. We got there and discovered that the road going up the mountain was closed, so we found a polo field in Stowe. We parked right around 6:15, an hour before sunrise and the sky had just turned from black to deep blue.

We stayed in the field for just over an hour and then got breakfast - I had an omelette with a side of the best bacon I have ever had. We both love little northern New England towns. Vermont and New Hampshire are both places I could see ourselves living in the (distant) future. We stopped by the Ben & Jerry's factory on the way home, and were back in New Britain by early afternoon.

Today's the Day!

Today I start my 101 things in 1,001 days challenge. Thats 143 weeks, or 2.75 years. On my list, Bold items will be tasks I have not yet done, italicized items will be tasks in progress, and regular type will be completed. I am really excited about starting this!

The toughest part about making the list was really thinking about what I want to do in three years. I wanted to keep the list to a certain criteria: either tasks that would stretch me in some way, or things that are fun that can be hard to make time for. As I said to my sister (who is trying to come up with her own list!) it was hard to stay away from chores and errands. So, wish me luck!

As far as our cold homestead is concerned, we will have heat soon! The wheels are in motion! Monday our decrepit, ancient boiler will be taken out and the crew (or person, I'm not sure) will do as much set up as possible. Tuesday the new one will be installed! While initially we wanted a boiler that would be efficient enough to earn us the federal tax credit, it turned out that those were considerably more expensive than we were expecting. So much so, that we are not sure if we would earn back the cost difference with the heat savings. So we are going with a boiler that is 85% efficient with a modulator. Our plumber told us that even though this boiler won't be as efficient as the 94% one, we will still be very happy with it and that it is still a huge upgrade from what we have now. Until then, it is electric blanket and down comforter.

101 things

Between my recent and sudden windfall of lots of free time and other happenings in my life, I want to make my own 101 things in 1001 days list. Right now I've only got about 25. If you have any good ideas, let me know!