What a Life!

As always, more Wordless Wednesday here.

Joey’s new favorite toy – my heels. I’ve left them out a couple of times recently (I hate wearing heels and take them off the moment I enter the house), and he has discovered the joy of walking around in them. As a bonus, they make great noise on the wood floor.

Click on the picture to see that picture and more of Joey wearing my heels over on Flickr.

*****

On a sad note, there seems to be something wrong with my camera. It won’t adjust the aperture. I’m hoping perhaps the connections are dirty since I change lenses frequently between taking pictures indoors and outdoors, though I try to do it in a dry, clean, still (not windy) place in order to keep dirt away from the sensor and the lens as much as possible. Maybe I’ll be lucky and they can just clean it and all will be well. Here’s to hoping for the best.

You can’t take yourself too seriously when you enter things in the fair.

See those two sweaters above? The one above is simple garter. In other words, plain. Yes, there are color changes, but they are at the end of the row. Very simple. The other is knit with fine yarn and has perfectly executed intricate stitching. The cables are very even. The seed stitch is impeccably even, and that’s not easy. But at the county fair, the simple one got the blue ribbon and the other one lost out.

Not so at the state fair. Same two sweaters, different ribbons. The white one with perfectly executed intricate stitching got first place, and the other one got nothing. I don’t know either of the knitters who made them, but it made my heart feel good to see the wrong made right.

One of my entries was a little sweater in the same class. Same pattern as the one that got the prize at the county fair, the Baby Surprise by Elizabeth Zimmerman. Mine placed 4th, the other Baby Surprise – nothing.

Remember this?

Well that became this.

And with it I scored two blue ribbons. Yes, two. One for it’s class – felted items. And one in a special class for items made with natural fiber. With the second blue ribbon, I scored a $25 gift certificate to my favorite yarn store in Omaha – Personal Threads. My lucky day, indeed.

You can’t take yourself too seriously when you enter things in the fair. But I sure am going to enjoy spending that $25 gift certificate.

I went through our budget this week. With Steve’s paycheck, after we pay the mortgage, student loans, car payment/tags/insurance, gas/electricity, water, trash, cell phones, cable/internet, groceries and gas, there is only $150 leftover for everything else. Everything else includes home maintenance, car maintenance, Target/Walmart (dish soap & toothpaste), clothing, gifts, entertainment, dining out, knitting, beer (not a part of the grocery budget), and plane tickets or gas to go visit family. To say nothing of things like home improvement or new furniture or anything like that. And savings? What’s that?

So it is no wonder that I feel constantly compelled to work. When the boys are asleep, I feel like I should be working. When they are awake and behaving, I feel like I should be working. When they are awake and behaving badly, I am pulling my hair out. And I am tired. Tired all the time.

Recently I saw a list online of one hundred things you can do to save money. The only thing on that list that we don’t do? We have cable. Basic cable. No Tivo. No digital box. Steve and I haven’t gone to a movie together since we were dating. We don’t go to concerts. We hardly ever eat out. There is all sorts of stuff we don’t do. But we do enjoy watching a little tv. Sports. Discovery and History channels. Fox News. Our cable and internet are a package deal, so we would only save $30 a month if we dropped cable. I never have the tv on during the day, but I do feel like I get my money’s worth on the weekends and evenings when I do watch a show or two. We may drop it after football season, though. But that’s beside the point.

I’ve really been struggling with how much work I get done (and how much money I make) and how much of a life I have outside of work. We just finished up an issue of the magazine. [I do technical editing for a knitting magazine from home.] Technical editing is fairly intense work, but the last week or two before we finish an issue reminds me of dead week and finals in college. By the time it’s over, you are so tired you can hardly think. But you still have to write a coherent essay (or find errors in a pattern) while working under time constraints. [I don’t do well with deadlines. They just get me in a tizzy and my productivity goes south.]

I try so hard to manage my time well and make the most of every dollar we have. But sometimes it seems that I have nothing to show for it but fatigue and an empty checking account.

I was complaining about this to my parents the other night, and my mother told me, “But you have a quality of life that you get to enjoy.” Yes. As I write this, I am listening to children marching around the house singing Jingle Bells at the top of their lungs. Well, Joey’s only doing the stomping part. But still. Quality of life. Indeed.

Sometimes, what I wouldn’t give to have the privilege every day of working without being interrupted by small children (or trying to tune them out while keeping them from tearing down the house). My husband complains about getting a phone call while he’s walking through a corn field. My bleeding heart.

Then again, I do get to be here when Joey’s walking around the house in his big brother’s slippers. After my parent’s visit in July, Ben informed me that Grandma says she wears house slippers. “But I wear car slippers,” he told me. Yes. Of course.

And did you know that there are two kinds of cows? Grass cows and milk cows. The grass cows are brown and eat grass. And the milk cows are black. Ben informed me of this the other day. The things you learn…

I really do somehow need to get a grip, though. Our editor is on vacation for two weeks, and I chose to go on vacation along with her. There are so many things around the house that have just been neglected. I need to figure out how to set boundaries and guard them better. How to work and get things done and make money without losing my sanity.

Easier said than done.

Seen at the County Fair. More county fair pictures here. And more Wordless Wednesday here.

Joey’s latest obsession – watching the toilet flush.

At our house, not only do we have a rule that the seat gets put down, the lid gets put down too. [Remember that if you every come to visit us – HUGE pet peeve of mine. Something could fall in, you know…like your toothbrush. And I don’t like looking in there anyway.]

So in order to see the toilet flush, the lid must be opened. But Joey doesn’t open it all the way. Nope. Just enough to see.

And then he watches intently as the water goes down…