What a Life!

Contemplating a possible career in computers.

Today we shall talk about knitting. I have three knitting bags so usually I have – that’s right – three knitting projects on the needles. But first, we shall discuss my recent FOs (Finished Objects).

These two articles were actually finished last Friday when I spent the day knitting. Finished these two objects cleared the slate for three new projects.

I finished knitting a pair of Fetching for myself. See?

I still haven’t figured out why fingerless gloves are so popular. When my hands get cold, my fingers are the coldest part of my hand…so of what use would be something that covered everything but your fingers? But last September when my mom had a milestone birthday, I wanted to knit her something special. So I knit her a pair of fingerless gloves just like the ones above.

You see, the used to make them is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. Merino is very soft wool. Cashmere is very, very soft wool (and very expensive). Let’s just say that one ball of yarn of this stuff costs twice as much for one ball and has half as much yarn in each ball as what I normally buy. Yes, do the math – it costs four times as much as I usually spend on yarn.

I would love to knit myself a sweater out of this yarn, but it is so not in the budget. But I can afford to make a pair of Fetching with one ball, and so I did. A pair for my mom for her birthday. A pair for my sister for Christmas. And finally, a pair for me.

The next FO (that’s right, two in one day) was a simple dishcloth for myself. Peaches and Cream yarn. I knit dishcloths exactly like this for my mother-in-law and sister-in-law (aka Steve’s family) for Christmas. See?

Very practical. The right colors for Game Day. Go Huskers!

Now, for new WIPs (Works in Progress):

I re-started the hat that I frogged. See?

It looks much better with a couple extra rows of ribbing around the brim. And my improved way of doing entrelac is much easier and looks much nicer, in my humble opinion. I am writing the pattern for this as I knit it so more on those details when I finish it.

Right now, however, it’s a UFO (Un-Finished Object…a term typically used by knitters to refer to items that have been started but set aside before they were finished). The thing is, I was knitting this when we all got sick. And knitting it reminds me of getting sick. I think I need a bit more time to heal from the trauma of being sick before I go any futher on that hat. I could really have used it this week, though. We had highs in the single digits. I just stayed inside instead…for about five days.

Another WIP: socks.

I’ve decided that I’m going to knit one sock per month this year. That would give me six pairs of socks by the end of the year. I don’t really need anymore socks. But I have the yarn…knitting socks is fun…and I like setting goals that I can achieve.

Finally, the glorious stripey sweater that I am making for my friend’s daughter.
You can see it as it currently looks here:

And you can see how I am cleverly making the stripes line up on the sleeve here:

Yes, those sleeves are set-in sleeves that are not knit separately and then seamed into the garment, and yes, they are knit in the round, and yes, I am writing the pattern for this as I go…so more on those details for my fellow knitters when this project is finished.

And for those of you who don’t really care about my knitting but have read this far anyway…here’s a picture for you:

To my knowledge, there is nothing unsafe about reading books, but I guess it doesn’t hurt to wear your helmet just in case…

We just finished watching The Sound of Music. We as in me (mostly), Ben and Joey. This was inspired in part by one of my knitting buddies, Liz, and her upcoming trip to Germany which includs a trip to Salzburg where they have a Sound of Music tour. I also was planning to join Netflix so maybe we’d watch some movies around here more often.

We have a video store in town. Ownership changed, though, and though the new guy put things in alphabetical order among genres rather than in order by release date, he’s kind of a smart alec so he’s not very fun to see when you go to pick out a video. Furthermore, the new releases are always gone by the time we get there, and we don’t keep up enough with what’s out there to know what might be worth seeing.

They did a special on Netflix a couple weeks ago on 60 Minutes (I think) about how they send you a movie the day after you request it, how shipping is for free, and how (this is the good part) they recommend movies you might like based on the ones you rent. Now that’s an idea!

So I signed up last week and added some movies to our queue (where you list the movies you want to see in the order you want to see them so they know what to send you as soon as you return the one you have). Of course, they’re all movies that I want to see. Like the Sound of Music. It’s such a wonderful movie!

I told Steve I was going to sign up a couple weeks before I actually did it, and he thought it was a good idea. You should have seen the look on his face when we got our first movie and it was the Sound of Music. He said, “You should have requested something I’d like to see too and we could have watched a movie together this weekend.” I told him he was welcome to watch the Sound of Music with me, but he declined, which is why we watched it today while he was at work.

The neat thing is, when they do the previews at the beginning of a movie (my favorite part), you can make note of the ones that look good and go add them to your queue as soon as the movie is over. I just added Oklahoma to our cue. I can hardly wait to see the look on Steve’s face when that arrives.

When I lived in Maryland, I loved watching Silver Screen on public tv on Saturday nights where they’d feature black-and-white (and sometimes color) classics. I love watching classic movies. They’re so much easier to follow along with – I seem to get lost half the time when I watch current selections.

One more great internet invention…paperbackswap.com. You can list paperbacks that you have but don’t want to keep around anymore, and people who want to read them will request them. I went through my books and found about two shelves worth of books I’d read and don’t care to read again, books I hated reading and don’t want to be reminded of, books I thought I would want to read but no longer want to, and books I tried to read but just couldn’t get into. Yes, that’s four categories of guilt.

You have to pay the postage to send the person the book, but for each book you send, you get to request a book that someone else is offering and they pay the postage to send it to you. The only downside is that the two books I requested didn’t look very nice when I received them. I am very careful with my books so they generally still look new after I’ve finished reading them. To me, reading a beat-up book is like eating off a dirty dish so I doubt I’ll be requesting many books.

I know I could just donate the books to the library or something. I’ve gone around to used bookstores in town before and gotten rid of books. But the used bookstores didn’t want all of my books, and the library took them, but maybe they didn’t want them either. I feel guilty handing off rejects like that.

But when someone actually requests a book you have sitting on your shelf that’s in one of those guilt categories, it feels so good to get rid of it. I mean, it’s great to not have it anymore – it’s really great to send it to someone who actually wants to have it. So it is with great joy that I pay $1.59 to send my books to someone else one at a time.

And getting rid of books I don’t want to read has inspired more reading of the books I do want to read. I finished reading Vinegar Hill and am now in the midst of Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Yes, that would be my “February book.” I’m ahead of schedule. Maybe I should change my goal and make it two books per month. Or maybe I should start working on some of my other goals…like exercise.

Okay, enough for now. I need to return that movie so I can get another one. Cheers!

Mmmm, Food…

Yesterday was a day filled with great accomplishments. Guess what I did? I fixed supper.

Okay, I know. That probably doesn’t sound like a great accomplishment to you. But wait! Guess how I did it?

I made supper at three o’clock in the afternoon. Yes, Steve was still at work. No, he didn’t come home early. But I made supper. And that’s what counts.

When you’re a mom with a young baby, evening is not a prime time to be spending time in the kitchen. Remember the Age of Opinion (as it pertains to Joey)? That’s what fixing supper is like so we usually eat simple things like gravy over old bread turned into toast or chef’s salad or leftover soup that takes ten minutes to thaw. That’s right – if I can’t do it in ten minutes, it doesn’t get done.

And Steve says he’s tired of soup. Sorry, but in my humble opinion, that is the only redeeming factor that winter can claim. I’m making more soup today, in case you’re wondering. Pea Soup. Yum.

But back to yesterday. I actually fixed supper. As in, a real meal. I made mashed potatoes from scratch. Baked Pineapple. And steak. We used to grill steak once a week. I don’t remember the last time we had steak. Steak used to be my “easy meal.” Ha-ha! How things change!

This steak happened to be part of our annual Christmas gift from Steve’s dad. Unfortunately, Steve’s dad isn’t very good at picking out good cows to butcher. I cooked the steak medium so it was still quite pink in the middle, and it was tough as leather. Steve says he hated steak until he was in college and ate some at a restaurant. His mother used to always cook them well done. If they are tough when they’re cooked medium, I can’t imagine what well done would be like. Anyway…

Ahh, Sleep…

Another grand accomplishment for yesterday was reviewing Elizabeth Pantly’s No Cry Sleep Solution in an effort to get Joey to go to sleep at night without the prerequisite two hours of crying. He’ll go down at 6:30 and sleep for about 45 minutes and then he cries and cries until after 9:00 when he finally goes back to sleep again. I’m telling you, it’s not fun. Steve tells me he can hardly study with a baby crying like that…as though I enjoy listening to him cry or something.

According to Elizabeth Pantly, a baby Joey’s age should be going to sleep for the night around 6:30. If Joey did that, I would be thrilled. I don’t care if that meant I had to get up with him three times during the night. It would mean I could leave and do Mary Kay or meet up with my knitting buddies and Joey would just sleep through it. Wow! I wouldn’t berate myself so badly for not being a member of the Five O’Clock Club if I had my evenings to myself again. As it is, with Joey crying all evening, I can’t ask Steve to watch him because he needs to study, and how much am I going to have to pay someone to watch a screaming baby?

Elizabeth Pantly says to try a new routine and do it for ten days and then take a step back and review how things are going. There is a short list of suggestions I’m trying to implement, the main one being to put him down for the evening at 6:30. Last night, he went down right at 6:30. Fell sound asleep. Then at 7:15, he woke up crying. But instead of treating this like an “awake” time, I stayed in the dark room and tried to get him settled back down. I’d get him settled down and back asleep, and then he’d wake up. Round and around we went until finally I had tried everything. I’d fed him, put him in the swing, his diaper was dry, he was in comfortable clothes, he had a comfortable bed…

I must confess, at this point, I had about had it. There were tears running down my cheeks too. So I put him down, put his blanket over him, and just stood there next to him. His crying got stronger and stronger until it was as bad as I can imagine it could possibly get. He did that for about a minute, and then all of a sudden he shut up, fell asleep, and didn’t wake up anymore. As in, I spent the rest of the evening on the couch knitting and watched CSI: Miami with Steve without having to get up and try to soothe a crying baby.

…and Laughter

And finally, a third accomplishment for my beaming resume. This one might make you laugh.

Sunday I looked out the window and noticed that Steve’s back tire on his truck was flat. I told him we could call a tow truck and State Farm would reimburse us 100% because we have the Roadside Assistance rider on our policy. But no, he had to go out and spend an hour and a half in freezing temperatures changing it himself, which gave him lots of things to grump about for the remainder of the day.

Anyway, he took the tire in Monday morning on his way to work and it had a tear along the wall so it needed to be replaced. He wanted me to call around and price tires for him, of course. So early in the afternoon, while Joey was taking one of his 45 minute naps (part of the sleeping problem), I made a few calls.

Now earlier in the day, Ben had been taking care of Mr. Bunny just like I take care of Joey. I came upstairs and he had all of Joey’s blankets out of the crib and had made a bed with them for Mr. Bunny on the floor. It was cute, but I wasn’t very happy with Joey’s blankets being strewn on the floor. I still have on of the doll blankets I had as a kid – a polyester quilt my Grandma Hagele made which was played with a lot but shows absolutely no signs of wear (polyester – the fabric of steel). I got it out for Ben and told him it was a special blanket he could use just for Mr. Bunny or Mr. Moose or whoever was cold and needed it. I’m telling you, my giving him that blanket was the highlight of his day. Here he is:

So I was holding Joey and trying to keep him happy while I called mechanics and priced tires for Steve’s truck. Ben got Mr. Bunny and his blanket, held him just like I was holding Joey, and put his hand up to his other ear as though he was on the phone pricing tires as well. He would just repeat what he thought were key phrases of what I was saying. I don’t remember any of the exact phrases he used, nor did I get a picture of this. I’m just saying it was all I could do not to set the phone down during a serious conversation with some mechanic about tires and laugh hysterically at what Ben was doing. I almost lost it a couple of times, but somehow I managed to maintain my composure enough to get prices so Steve could decide which ones he wanted on his truck.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my very productive day, one that I should definitely include on my resume as a stay-at-home-mom. I know, you’re rolling your eyes and thinking you probably could have done all of that and more in a mere hour. Just know that I’m rolling my eyes too and thinking, yeah, you just don’t have a clue.

It’s been a crazy week. Every morning that I have valiantly tried to get up early and have some time to myself, those precious peaceful moments have only lasted about fifteen minutes. Either I sleep too late, Ben gets up, or Joey insists that he wants to be awake. So no time for Tana to just relax and knit and wait for good ideas to pop into her head. It’s those good ideas that energize me – way more than a cup of coffee ever would – and that’s how I make it through my day. Towards the end of the week, I was getting pretty worn down and discouraged.

The thing about working for yourself from home is that the lines between work and not-work tend to blur. As a mom, I don’t get a break from fixing meals or changing diapers on the weekend. With owning my own business, I struggle with taking “time off” because I fear I might be turning business away. So I’m always in this ready mode and never seem to get a break.

This has bothered me a lot since I became a work-at-home-mom after Ben was born. I’ve tried changing the daily routine on the weekends, and that helps some. But even then, I still feel sometimes like I never get a break.

I came across a thought-provoking article recently available over on David Allen’s Getting Things Done website. The question was from people who wanted to know how often they should check their work email while “on vacation.” David’s answer was quite interesting.

One comment he made was that one of the benefits of working for yourself is that you can take a day off during the middle of the week and go sailing. In that case, you would still obviously want to keep in touch via email, but it is that ability to keep in touch is what makes it possible for you to spend the day sailing rather than sitting behind your desk.

The other comment he made that I found quite interesting was in regards to not being able to get work off your mind while you’re on vacation. His response was that if you love what you do, chances are the change of pace is going to allow for ideas to pop into your head and that you should by all means capture those ideas so that you can act of them when you get back to the office. He followed that remark with the comment that if you don’t like what you’re doing and you really don’t want to think about it while you’re gone, then perhaps you need to find a job where you do enjoy what you are doing.

I came across that article a couple weeks ago and quickly adopted that thinking toward my business. I do enjoy doing Mary Kay. Why slow myself down if I enjoy doing it? If I’m having fun, by all means, carry on. After practicing that attitude for a couple weeks, I must confess that I am amazed at how much non-Mary Kay time I have to do as I please.

I used to feel like I did Mary Kay all the time. I mean, most people who do Mary Kay do it alongside a fulltime job, so it makes sense that when you’re not at work, you need to squeeze Mary Kay into every posslbe spare minute that you can or you will not get anywhere, and you really shouldn’t be doing non-people tasks like paperwork during people time or you will be squandering what little time you have. But doing Mary Kay as a stay-at-home-mom, I am not going to work my business twelve hours a day (people time is from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.). So the typical time-management mentality that I practiced while I worked doesn’t work anymore.

Finally, I came across this thought provoking article Thursday morning. It’s said too well on that blog for me to summarize it here so go read it there.

Thursday evening, I was tired. I had gotten lots done this week. I organized my digital photos online. I cleared off the desk. I cleaned the house. I conquered Mt. Washmore. I got all these things done that had been hanging over my head for seemingly forever. So on Friday I decided to “take a break” and look out a different window. The weather was bad so we didn’t go to town as we normally do on Friday. Instead, I dressed in comfy clothes and spent the entire day (essentially) knitting.

Needless to say, this morning I woke up very refreshed. Now that was a good vacation.

Our dear sweet Joey has reached the Age of Opinion. He doesn’t generally cry because things “aren’t right” in general anymore. No, he cries because he doesn’t like something specific that is happening.

Case in point: the other night Steve came home from work and I wanted to fix supper. The logical plan was for him to hold Joey while I worked in the kitchen. His diaper didn’t need to be changed, and he wasn’t due for another feeding (based on his typical schedule) for another half hour or so. Steve took him and sat down. Joey took one look at him and started screaming hysterically. You know, the they-left-me-on-the-side-of-the-road-and-drove-off-without-me cry. He’d cry like that for about a minute and then he’d stop. He’d look at Steve, and then he’d start screaming hysterically again. “You are not the person who is supposed to be holding me. I want my Mommy!” Finally, after about five minutes of that, I gave up on the idea of fixing a meal (who needs to eat anyway?) and took Joey back, at which point he immediately stopped crying and was quite content.

Yes, I know Joey loves me. He’ll still say Da-da before he says Ma-ma, though. Steve had to work and work with Ben to get him to say Mama. The trick that finally worked? It had to be part of a song. So they’d go around the house together singing “Mommy. Mommy.” Oh my!

Speaking of opinions, I have one of my own. Yesterday Steve went to the dentist for a regular exam, and they found a tooth that has a filling that is leaking and needs to be replaced. Since Joey was born less than 90 days ago, we still have the option of changing our coverage and Steve asked me to look into it. So I started digging around only to discover that our beloved dentist is not “in network” for the dental insurance plan that we have.

Now with this particular insurance, the coverage is the same whether you are out-of-network or in-network. The only difference is that if your dentist charges $150 for a procedure and the insurance only “allows” $100 for the procedure, you’re stuck paying the extra $50. So I called the insurance to see if I could find out what the allowable charge was for the best-case and worst-case procedures that Steve needed to have done.

Oh, well, they couldn’t give me that information. They could only tell me the percentage of the allowable charge that they could pay. I told them, 80% of $75 for a $150 bill is completely different than 80% of $150. I need to know 80% of what. The customer service rep insisted that she could not give me that information and so I asked for a supervisor.

The supervisor informed me that by asking “80% of what?” I was asking them to break some federal anti-trust law that protects them from having to give out that information. Because…if they gave out that information, then dentists would adjust their fees in order to receive the maximum benefit allowed.

Now let’s be honest here: When is the last time you got a statement from your insurance company where the amount the doctor charged was less than the amount the insurance was willing to pay? Personally, I cannot think of a single instance where that has been true. In fact, I’ve called insurance companies many times before a procedure was done in order to find out what they pay for that particular procedure and thus what our portion was going to be with that particular provider. I mean, it’s only fair that I can find out that information, especially in the case of an out-of-network provider, so that I can make an informed decision regarding whether or not I want the procedure to be performed and who I want to have do it.

According to our dentist’s office, every other insurer that they deal with gives them a list of allowable charges for every procedure. That way they can make an informed decision as to whether or not they want to accept that insurance, and when they do accept that insurance, they know how much they will be paid. How is it that these other companies aren’t breaking this federal anti-trust law by doing that but Dingbat Dental Insurance Company that we’re dealing with is?

Quite frankly, if they do not disclose how much they are going to pay, how are we to know that they aren’t using the dentist’s middle initial to make that decision? Your dentist’s middle initial is K so we’re going to allow $100 for the procedure. His dentists’ middle initial is P so we’ll allow $125 for him. Really…who’s to say they aren’t doing something like that? Gracious!

So I stuck to my guns. I insisted that they give me a firm number as to what they were going to be paying 80% of. It’s only reasonable. I was on the phone for over twenty minutes with that supervisor, most of it on hold. Turns out, she called the dentist office, got the same information from them that I had given her (billing code for the procedure, how much they charge, and so forth), and she finally was able to give me an answer.

I called our dentist back after I got off the phone with the insurance company to let them know what I had managed to find out. The gal I talked to told me that was more information than she had ever been able to get out of that insurance company, and in fact, they had hung up on her more than once when she had tried to get that same type of information for a customer.

Since I used to work for an insurance company myself, I know all about compliance works, including how much trouble it is to document how a case was handled when the insurance commissioner forwards you a letter of complaint that they received from one of your customers. It may have taken twenty minutes of my time to get the answer I needed, but Dingbat Dental Insurance Company may be spending more time on this issue before we’re done. If nothing else, I can return them the favor and cause them a little bit of extra trouble. Just saying is all…