What is normal, anyway?!

Normal...such a nice, bland sounding word. A word that implies that all is how it should be, even keeled and without need of change. But sometimes things change without your permission...and then you need to get a new normal. When my dad moved out? Total shift in what normal became. Dinner as a family became fend for yourself night on a regular basis (fend for yourself night was AWESOME. Eat whatever you wanted for dinner, whenever you decided you were hungry.) Going away to school senior year? Definite new normal needed (life with roommates, no control over most meals, enforced study hours...). Going away to college? Same thing. The biggest new normal for me has been my dad. About 5 years ago he was in a serious accident, leaving him in a drug induced coma for weeks, and leaving a whole bunch of scar tissue on his brain. The man my father is today is not the man he was even seconds before the accident. That's not to say that he's entirely different, but there are marked differences. He gets tired more easily, gets confused easily, and sometimes just isn't quite himself. The biggest change in normal for me is my mindset regarding him, though. It's taken me a while to come to terms with the realization that my soon to be husband and future children will not know the man I grew up with. They'll know Fred 2.0...and while that isn't necessarily a bad thing, I'll know the difference...but what's abnormal to me, will be perfectly normal to them...what is normal, anyway?!

Someday..

I'll get around to sifting out my recipes and putting them on an attached blog, or something, to differentiate from the knitting/random stuff blog topics. Until such time (which, let's face it, I'm lazy so....never), the subjects will remain mixed together.
Without further ado, here's a random smattering of what I've been up to, am listening to, etc...

New music: The Johnnies debut album, the new Decemberists (both are amazing, get them NOW)

Knitting projects: pay no attention to the column to the right of your screen. It's full of lies. Also, I'm working on other stuff.

I'm currently on a muffin baking kick. It might be just a one day kick, but it's a reasonably epic one...4 different kinds of muffins today, all with different batters. Blueberry, lemon raspberry, honey corn, and morning glory (my own take on them, though...no nuts or raisins, thankyouverymuch, but added some oats...subbed applesauce for 3/4 of the oil...came out AWESOME.)

Dinner tonight was a take off of a fabulous pasta dish my uncle made last weekend. Whole wheat penne, tossed with: olive oil, shallots, garlic, asparagus, broccoli, carrots, spinach, chicken and sundried tomatoes. added a little dried thyme and kosher salt at the end. ohmygod. amazing.

Other excitement: wedding planning is at a standstill, due entirely to laziness and end of the semester stuff for Dan, logged some quality baby time while K finished up a project, shoved my foot in my mouth regarding dinner with dad last night and a comment about unemployment to K (guh. studip studip studip....think, madigan. THINK.)

So, yeah...nothing super exciting...off to watch game 7 of the Bruins/'Canes series....

Just as sweet as they can be...

As I've mentioned here before, Dan and I are extremely lucky to have a very special family in our lives...Kate, Willem, Jacob and Emily. Kate's always there just when I need her, and I hope I'm holding up my end of that as well! The boys talk math type things (Willem being a student of math, and Dan of computer science), and Kate and I talk knitting, and other such things. We could both certainly hold our own in the boys conversation, but since they would be hard pressed to keep up with discussions of patterns, fiber, and needle types, we leave them to their own ;)

On Friday I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth taken out. Certainly not the most earth shattering of undertakings, but given that I've only been put under one other time, and certainly haven't had that level of trauma inflicted on a single part of my body before (no broken bones, etc), it's really knocked me for a loop. Mornings find me looking like a chipmunk and in a fair bit of pain, which tapers off with the first handful of Advil.

Kate and I had planned to have lunch today (I was looking forward to eating something not orange...orange powerade and orange sherbert have been the standard fare for the last couple of days), but instead I opted to stay home curled up with my ice packs and pain killers. Kate asked if I would be awake this afternoon, and cryptically said that she'd be dropping by. What a great cryptic drop by it was, too. Frozen goodies picked out by Kate and the kids, hugs all around, and some ungodly lovely yarn (which will just HAVE to be a cowl so I can snuggle into it on cold days, rather than looking odd and just rubbing my face with wristers on...).



I'm feeling better already....

knitting list

a list of current wips. trying to clear these out before starting anything else new (especially since these are all, for the most part, 1 or 2 steps away from being finished!)

-Fetchings for Mom - lengthen thumbs, different bind off
-Tessie for mom
-pink baby sweater - 1.5 sleeves from being done
-Arwen - just needs seaming! (send to mom Pineo?)
-thrummed mittens - mom - lengthen first thumb, finish second mitten
-Atlantique socks - me (purse project, no hurry)

The queue:
-Black cardigan (technically already started...good mindless knitting)
-wedding shawl (yarn bought, and needles, and pattern...cast on!)
-Apres surf hoodie
-tempest


Ok. lets see how much of that top list I can get through in the next couple of weeks....

Rivalry...it's not just for siblings anymore!

No, I'm not going to talk about how my sister and I just plain don't get along. There's no perceived slight there, by the way, we're just different critters who happen to be genetically related. Anyway. Nope, this is about sports rivalries...to wit, college sports rivalries. I could wax poetic about Red Sox vs Yankees, but it's trite, and been done. No, instead I'm going to talk about the best rivalry I've ever experienced...the University of Arizona vs Arizona State University.

Arriving on campus for the first time, you go through something of a genetic change: "Welcome to the University of Arizona. Here's your ID. You now hate ASU." and it's true! Coming from Maine, I could care less about the rivalry. They didn't mean much to me. UMaine vs UNH? Sure, I could get behind that one. But U of A vs ASU? Whatever! Well, that certainly didn't last long. That rivalry was used in EVERYTHING, most notably the U of A vs ASU blood donor challenge. Yep, the Red Cross got in on the act, too! There was an enormous leader board in the middle of the campus mall, where there was a running tally kept of the number of pints of blood donated by each school. If U of A fell behind, you would hear conversations about how we couldn't let ASU win, and let's go donate blood! Really, it's genius marketing.

When I moved back to the East Coast (sorry, Arizona...I'm just a New England girl at heart!) to finish school, I was sorely disappointed to find that my new university (UMass Amherst) had NO rival to speak of. I mean, there's the usual pseudo-Yankees style rivalry with Boston College (I love two teams...my team, and whomever beats BC), but that's about it. I'm sure most of it stems from a serious lack of school spirit and no real powerhouse sport (Sorry, Coach!)As a huge sports fan, this was greatly disappointing to me.

I understand that a rivalry isn't all there is to sports, but it sure as hell makes it more fun!

Friends

[This week's carnival topic from Kate is friends...here we go!]

Friends are a funny thing...there are times when you think you have tons of them, but you don't, and there are times when you think you are totally alone in the world, and turns out? Lots of folks want to be your friend. I could go into something here about how high school sucked, and blah blah blah. But, no. It's old, tired, and frankly, I'm on vacation and don't feel like writing about downer kinds of stuff...
Instead, I'll write something else. Maybe, how just when you think you know everything there is to know about someone, they'll come out with something totally random that you had no idea about, and it's awesome. A full blown, "me too!" moment. People often surprise me that way; chatting with Dan in the car about cartoons, then both of us revealing that we loved watching Samurai Jack while in college, Sara declaring yesterday that my ultimate pizza sounds awesome (pepperoni, mushrooms and pineapple...yes, all at the same time!), or my cousins Bryan and Jesse just being the other 2/3rds of my brain.
Most of all, though, there's people who will just sit there with you while you totally lose it, know you and your moods so well that they can tell when you're having an off day before you even know what's wrong, and don't mind when you're all sniffly and red faced. Other than the man I'm marrying, and blood relatives, I can count on one hand the number of people who I can count on to see me through those dark hours. [and I think you know who you are!]
As I grow older, I remember how easy friendships were when I was young. Marie coming over and the both of us getting covered in strawberry juice; riding bikes with Nate and Joey, heading to the beach with Gina, Trina and the rest of the Orr's Island crew...those friendships were easy, and innocent. Both sets of parents knew, if Joey or I weren't at home, it was a pretty good bet we were at the other's house. We'd just hang out, ride bikes, play on the computer...
As I got a little older, my friendships changed, but mostly by virtue of whom I was friends with, but not the scope of the friendships. The theater/music gang I hung out with (Aaron (big brother), Cathy, Kurt, Derek, Shannon, Steve, John...)..we'd stay up all night in Aaron's folks basement playing video games, d&d and elfquest...again, totally innocent, and our parents never had any reason to doubt that.
One wonderful thing that has remained a constant is how easy my true friendships are. They're still just as unassuming, unwavering, and uncomplicated as they were when I was young, they're just with a different set of people. Only, now, I'm not willing to let those move on...at least not yet. And hopefully not ever...

Generational Hand-me-downs

My mother's family came over from Ireland before the Famine. They came through Castle Gardens, not Ellis Island, and, as there was a huge fire on Ellis Island where most of the Castle Gardens records were stored, we can't find anything out from there. Unless, of course, they came through Boston, and routed down to NYC. Hard telling, not knowing.
My grandpa Vinnie grew up in New York, was a newspaperman, and served in the Army. I have shadowy recollections of his house, and firmly believe he watches over me...mom was his favorite child, and I was her oldest, so I became his favorite too, by extension. I feel a certain attachment to things that were his, or were in his house. I have the usual assortment of hand-me-down furniture (my desk, both bureaus, and my china and silver which is in storage). I look quite a bit like my grandfather, from what I've been told, having both his nose and his chin, and his affinity for strong black coffee. I've got the Irish wit, blessedly not the temper so much, and am a huge fan of Guinness. But, lest you think that's all there is to me, let's get Dad's side of the story...
Dad's family came to Harpswell sometime in the 1800s from Nova Scotia. We're a bit mutt, with Scotch, Welsh, some flavor of First Nations in us (I've heard varying reports of tribe and amount, but rest assured, the amount is so minimal as to be laughed at)..basically your usual assortment of exploring/conquering countries, and a little "folks who were already here" thrown in for good measure. My sister was always daddy's little girl, and I more closely related to mom. However, that seems to have switched as I've gotten older. I'm a lot more like my dad in temperament, and less like my mom and sister. I love them both dearly, but there are a lot of things that I just don't see eye to eye on with them, but am either in agreement with dad on, or can at least have a rational and spirited debate over them with him, both of us able to respect the other's opinion. (I don't always agree with him, but he usually has damn good reasons for doing something, which I have to respect. Not agree with, but respect.)
The next set of generational hand-me-downs that I'll get to observe will be my own children. Will they be like me? Like Dan? A combination of us both? Or will they be the reincarnation of one of my relatives? Only time will tell....