* Partly a placeholder post here because I hope (later this afternoon) to get the newly-finished quilt (the one I was sewing the binding onto) photographed and a photo posted here.
* I did feel some better giving the exam because I got to knit a bit, and I started the decreases for the right front of the Augusta cardigan. (And to Interweave Press' or the pattern author's credit, there isn't the dreaded "reverse shaping" - they give more detailed instructions than that. One thing I dislike on some sweater patterns is that they give detailed information for one side, and then say "work other side the same, reversing shaping" and while it's not HARD math to do, it does slow a person down, and if you're tired (and who's not tired these days?) it's easier to mess it up)
* Maybe I also need to take and post a photo of the two dolls (the Gabby Douglas Barbie and the one I now call Cinnamon). I found a dress I really like on Cinnamon, and I realize now that she's probably a boho-hippie type when she's away from her career as a hip hop dancer - it's a long full "granny type" dress that would not have been out of place in a 1972 music festival. And I put Gabby back in a preppy pleated skirt and top, and put a 'varsity' jacket over it....she works as a high-school student even if the real Gabby Douglas is now in her 20s.
I dunno. It's the little things you have to look for and hang onto in this life, and if the little thing that makes you happy is dressing dolls, you go with that.
* I was also thinking while giving the exam about dreams. Specifically, a class of dream I used to have and wish I could again. They were most prevalent about the time I was buying my house: in the dream, I'd be in the house, and I'd find a door I hadn't seen before. And when I opened it, there'd be something cool there - either a perfectly-preserved period room (I remember one midcentury-modern style one) or a lot more storage space, or something. Or I'd go out in the back garden and instead of the jumbled weedy mess that is there, there'd be perfect rosebushes, or a shady corner with one of those mini-waterfalls made with stacked rocks and a pond pump, or fruit trees....and once, I dreamed that there was a stairway down to something like an underground corridor system that led to places like museums and a symphony hall and I remember thinking, 'wow, I can go to the symphony any time I want now.'
I haven't had a dream like that in a while. The last one that fits that model that I remember was in 2015.
I don't know. I suspect those dreams were symbolic of hopes for the future - when I was buying my house, that it would be great and wonderful and an exciting new experience, or that there'd be some wonderful thing right in town I didn't know about, or whatever.
And yeah, okay: on balance, owning a house has been good and it is a blessing to be away from the monthly mandatory "insect sprayings" (I never had any in my apartment and I'm SURE it was a way for management to check up on us) and the complaint about owning "too many books" (I have probably doubled the number of books I own since I moved to the house) or whatever.
But I kind of miss that. I miss that sense that I could turn around a corner (figurative or literal) and find some wonderful thing I hadn't known existed.
Maybe this is part of aging? Or maybe this is how I'm still kind of broken by everything that happened in 2016? I don't know. But I wish I had those dreams again, and I really wish there were a few wonderful things in reality to discover.
* Also thinking about how new losses (or even impending losses) bring up old ones. I don't think I mentioned on here (just on Twitter) that one of the older men who belonged to my church is now in hospice. Apparently he's not taking it all that well, or maybe it was that he wasn't taking being in a different nursing home from his wife (who has early-stage Parkinson's and possibly some dementia) all that well.
F*** cancer, man. I just...it makes me sad and angry.
And also. G. is a retired dentist. He was always a nice, sort-of-courtly, in that old-fashioned way, person. A gentleman, people would say. And so it makes me extra sad. He was also the person I called back in 2013 when I broke that tooth over the Fourth of July weekend and he advised me as to what I should do until I could get in to see my dentist.
But it also brought up to my memory the loss of my grandmothers, and of some friends, and of other people I cared about, and....crikey, one thing I was NOT prepared for in adulthood was how you build up this backlog of losses and they ALL come out when you're facing another one.
* But yeah. I need to get out tomorrow I think even as I feel like I would like to just hole up in my sewing room. Being out around people and getting to look at plants and scramble over rocks will probably do more for how I feel than just about anything.
* Also I had the germ of an idea this morning: I will be going hard these next three weekends (this weekend is Wonders of Wildflowers, next weekend is a Board Training thing, the following weekend is graduation). But I give all my exams on Monday and Tuesday of exam week. Maybe, if I get the grading done (I won't be able to submit all the grades; the gen-ed class I teach has a common final and the final grade is averaged across all sections) I could go to Whitesboro on Wednesday to go antiquing and use the $20 gift certificate loyalty thing I have from Quixotic Fibers and go out to lunch at Lovejoy's (which is why it would be on Wednesday and not Thursday).
Maybe. I think I need a day out like that even if I don't need more yarn or quilting fabric. (but I could purchase a backing for a top I've had hanging around, or look at patterns/books)
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