Last time I was working at home, I was also working outside the home; and I felt I had three different “me”s… that I was being pulled in three different directions. There was The Office Worker Me, who spent four days a week, between 15-30 hours, at an office. Although I had a set schedule some days I would come home early due to no work and some weeks I would stay late or come in on my day off and I felt that even though my heart wasn’t in that job that I should be, because it was a paycheck. There was Writer Me, frustrated with sharing my office with the cat box room, a good portion of my reference books boxed up, and feeling that because I was working at home I should have all this free time to do stuff at home like chores, and was surprised that I didn’t. Then there was Homebody Me, who couldn’t be crafty because the kiln was turned off due to electricity renovations, who felt like I should take on the lion’s share of the chores since I was home so much and at the same time frustrated at taking on the lion’s share of the chores because when was I supposed to write?!

This time I am 100% home and 100% crafty. I have not one, but (bless Tim’s heart) THREE rooms in which to be crafty; my ceramics room, my dye bar, and my office. Not to mention bringing ceramics into the living room to watch TV while I paint, or firing the kiln on the back porch… the whole house is my craft area. And as such I find myself taking better, or at least quicker, care of the house. Because the kitchen is right by my dye bar, I find myself putting the dishes away when I walk through; not because I need to but because I walk by it seventeen times a day and it’s unsightly. I clean out the cat boxes daily; not because I need to but because I am walking barefoot by one seventeen times a day and I don’t like cat litter on my feet – and if I’m cleaning up one, I might as well clean up the other three at the same time.

It’s almost pathetic, how excited I am to start working at the start of my day. I crank up the crock pots for dyeing while I’m having my coffee, if there’s yarn to be dyed that day. Or I start pouring molds while I’m having coffee. I start working before I even shower, because I’m just that excited to be doing what I’m doing. I’m trying to get a good number of ceramics either finished or ready to step up and be finished for the launching of Haldecraft. Same thing with soap. I just made some yesterday, and didn’t have nearly the amount of stock on hand that I thought, so I placed a huge order with Brambleberry – the largest order I’ve ever placed. Today is… July 22nd. I’m hoping for an opening of my shop around August 15th. A friend of mine is working with me on logo, typeface, and packaging, and y’all… her ideas are so fabulous I wish I could give you a sneak peek… but I won’t! I want everyone to be surprised and impressed!

Some things at home I am still not on top of. Folding laundry when it’s done. Weeding the front yard. But I’m ok with where I am. Those other things will come, I will have time for them later when I’m at in-between, waiting times for the shop. It’s all good.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go turn on the crock pots, and take a shower. It’s time to start my crafty day!

And the part of me that’s not screaming OW!OW!OW! says that it’s really not all that bad, especially when I look on the Interwebs for other pictures of broken toes. I mean, check it – I hardly even got a bruise. I feel like a baby for even complaining about it. And yet, after I broke it and had to put on shoes to go to the store to get tape, I thought I was going to fall over dead from pain. Sliding on those Birks hurt like a motherfucking hurty thing that motherfucking hurt a lot. I have a really high pain tolerance – frequently working through migraines because shit needs to get done and I need to do it – but sliding on that shoe brought me to tears. I don’t think I’ve ever, ever been in such pain. Maybe when stepping on that piece of driftwood on the beach that went so far into my foot… but I was 11 then and have mercifully blocked that out.

Speaking of migraines, I woke up with one this morning. I went to sleep hella early last night, like 10 PM; but woke up about 4:30 AM because my toe hurt, my neck hurt, and I was 100% conjested and couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know what to take – ibuprofen for my foot? Excedrin migraine for my neck? Benadryl for my nose? Surely I shouldn’t take all three, my liver might crawl out of my body. So I got up and was grouchy for a while, and decided on Benadryl and falling back asleep on the couch with my heating pad under my neck. Win! And then after Tim got up, around 8, I decided to go crawl back into bed because the throbbing had somewhat receded in my neck. And I slept until 11. I haven’t slept that long in AGES.

Also, it is like a sauna in here, and oy! My sciatica!

Oh, how did I break my toe? Remember how I was taking box after box of crap to Hospice Attic? Like, four car-loads of boxes of crap? I guess one box was all “you’re not gonna get me, Copper!” because it attacked me when I got up from my desk to let the dogs in the back yard. Fucker. Also, ow.

I have never broken a bone before! Please tell me your horrible broken bone stories so that I can feel better about my painful tiny piggy.

The the month got crazy.

The fun: We watched Jenn’s dog, Chloe, for about a week (I think everyone was sufficiently tired out). I finally fired the kiln for the first time this year. We had a great birthday party for my mom and Uncle Joe. We got KITTENS.

The bittersweet: We had the last Third Thursday Spinners at the yarn shop (thanks in part to TW, we’ll be moving that in July to Wild Iris Books). Later that week, we closed the yarn store. (Shameless plug, though, that we are still selling online, please buy yarn and soap, thanks!)

The crazy busy: Tim built a bookshelf in order to clear off a wall and to move these hutches out of my office. He also gutted our kitchen. And our dining room. I was really kind of pleased with the yarn I dyed for the June sock club; the worsted weight yarn I branched out into dyeing; and the sport weight. While I was dyeing and winding, Tim continued to work on our kitchen, and remodeled the dining room into a dye bar. Have I ever mentioned how completely fucking awesome my husband is? Because he is. Completely. Fucking. Awesome. (Shout out to Bill and Linda, for doing a darn fine job with that boy!). I took a metric ton of crap to Hospice Attic – having to reorganize the house made me ruthless in getting rid of stuff I’d been keeping around just in case we needed it. We moved antique furniture out of the shop and found places for it in our home (photos of that to come in the July recap, though).

The knitting: I finished one thing, and that was finished really on the first day of the month – meaning I knit most of it in May. Oh! Wait!  Two things. Not a lot of knitting time in June.

And… yeah. That was my month. How was your June?

With the yarn shop closing, I need to make room for some furniture; antiques that my mother gave me. I knew upon getting them, in fact, wouldn’t have accepted them without Tim and I understanding that at some point in the future (for either good reasons or sad reasons) they would be in our house rather than the shop.

The biggest thing by far is the corner hutch (there’s also a table and a small… couch? Settee? I’m not sure what it’s called. Loveseat?). The hutch is built to go in a corner, and needs 2.5-3 feet on either side of the corner. It’s about 80″ tall. So Tim and I walked around the house, room by room, with a tape measure, evaluating each corner. There’s really only one corner it can go into both height-wise and without blocking anything, but that corner (in my office) was already taken up by two smaller hutches.

So we needed to move those two hutches in order to make room for the big corner hutch. Where could they go? Again; tape measure. My Libra orderliness wanted to keep them together – in the same room, at least, if not close to each other. Hey, they are 72″ long when next to each other. There’s a wall between our kitchen and living room that is exactly… 72″ long. So… guess what’s there now?

Oh! But guess what? There was something already on that wall (and exactly nobody is surprised). There were some bookshelves cobbled together from boards and L-brackets. CLASSY. So we would have to take those down and find someplace else for those books to go. Did I mention that the brown hutches there were already full of books? (Again, nobody is surprised).

I’d never liked the boards-and-brackets thing anyway (quick fix after The Training Husband (TM) got the nice shelves in the divorce). So Tim is going to build a fabulous bookshelf that will run the length of the long window in the living room. It will be adjustable for oddly sized books (what had been on the wall were art/humor/photography books, yes, I categorize my books, doesn’t *everyone* do that when they come from a family of writers and librarians?). It will be perfect. But it will take a couple of days to build.

Meanwhile, all of the books are on the floor, in front of the TV. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, we just can’t watch anything on either DVD or VHS. Come to think of it, I’m not 100% sure that the VCR still works. Maybe it does. Ah well. MOVING ON.

It’s been like this for about 48 hours. In that 48 hours every worry that I ever had of becoming a hoarder and eventually being crushed to death by a falling pile of books or magazines has been banished. I have books piled on my desk. Books on the floor. I have to weave my way through piles of things that could fall over at any second… AND I CAN’T TELL YOU HOW STRESSFUL THAT IS. I may be ruthless with these books when I go to put them back on the shelves. I may wind up getting rid of a few/many/some. Too bad Denise and Tarrant don’t live here any more!

I also may need to cull my coffee-cup collection. Why, you ask? Because Tim’s also doing a little work on the room in which that collection is currently housed. You see, because of the closing of the yarn shop, I’ll be dyeing all the yarn we do at my house instead of at the shop. And our kitchen is in no way cut out to hold four crock pots that may need use at any moment, for most of the day, for most of the days of a given week.

So we have this dining room, that we never use as a dining room. Tim is ripping up the laminate that we put in back in… 2003 (?). Chili essentially destroyed it by peeing all over it, and Tim has wanted to replace it for a while. So this isn’t necessarily a hardship, it’s just now got a time limit on it that we weren’t expecting. Because he’s laying down tile, and is then going to build a brand-new dye bar, wherein I can dye yarns like a mofo, and the supplies for that will start moving into the house on June 28th. Hoo-boy; after a couple weeks, That Poor Man may get tired of me roaming around the house, Bat’leth in hand, chanting in a low voice “perhaps today… IS… a good day… to dye…”.

HAH! Thank you. I’ll be here all week.

ANYWAY. Up until 48 hours ago, the dining room mentioned above was a box room; all of those boxes are now in the corner of my office where those two hutches were, where the corner hutch will go in about a week. They are boxes mostly full of two wedding china sets and a lot of ceramics that I haven’t had room to put on display (see note about first husband getting shelves) for a number of years. My plan (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, plans) is that I will fit as many books onto the under-the-window bookshelf as I can, culling the herd as I go. Then onto the hutches, wherein I hope to be able to put the wedding china sets and as many of the ceramics as I can (culling the herd on those also; expect some things to maybe go up for sale).

Meanwhile, I’ll be tip-toeing around the house, trying not to knock anything over for the next two weeks. Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster. I said to Jenn earlier today, I didn’t know who I would rather not be over the next two weeks; myself, or Tim. I’m going to have a lot of emotions to process as we get into the last days of the physical yarn store. There’s going to be a lot of bittersweet moments and I hope I’m not too busy in the dye bar to get to appreciate them. I’m going to be hard at work, dyeing and winding yarn for the grand opening of our online shop a few days after the physical shop closes. I’m going to be on my feet 8-10 hours a day, overworking my shoulder on the winder, cranky and hurting by the time I get home. But Tim is still trying to catch up on his certification, still trying to work on getting a job, and now he’s taking on all this physical labor in the house that has a finite amount of time that he can spend on it until shit needs to be moved from the shop at the end of the month. Plus, he’ll have to deal with me. Who would you rather be?!

Publix construction at work continued to be the death of us. Nugget celebrated her first birthday in the shop. We saw some baby birds hatch and fly away. While Sharon went home on vacation she got the spinning wheel her father made for her (the one on the left). There was an Uptown Art Hop; sadly now the last one that we’ll participate in. Although as an upside, now I can go to them and have a good time! Just kidding; this last time was actually made overwhelmingly good thanks to our friends who helped out (Sharon was still in West Virginia) and Ginger and I felt fully supported – buoyed, even – by every single person who came by that night. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE (and I want to have your yarn babies).

In knitting I thought I finished a whopping seven, but I can’t count – only one, two, three, four, five things – I still have a few big projects on the needles and they never seem to get very far very fast. Is it the heat? The fact that I never pick them up? Not having brain power enough for big projects?

In late May I was worried about the future of the shop, but couldn’t say anything. Wait; since September of last year I’ve been worried about the future of the shop, but couldn’t say anything. As uncertain as I am now about the future, at least I can talk about it now. The rest of June is going to be out-of-control busy; any bets on when I get my June recap written up…? Oh, wait; as of July 1st I’m going to have a lot of free time on my hands. Might not be that long after all!

Let me say first that nobody (that I know of) has been diagnosed with cancer, has been hit by a bus, had a horrible miscarriage, or any other such badness.

But for those of you who are regulars at our yarn store, or have been cheering from the sidelines, we have some news about some changes. I will wait while you go read that, if you want. doo dee dooo….. la la la la la…. doo dee doo…. back yet? Never left? Want me to just tell you in a nutshell, or recap if you just read it and your mind has gone blank? Hanks Yarn and Fiber is changing to a new business model that involves being online and no longer having a bricks-and-mortar storefront.

I have so much I want to say.

This is hard. The first few weeks I expect to be walking around the house trying to talk to Sharon, maybe even shouting out to her like she might be in the other room. It’ll be like when you can’t remember where you put your coffee cup, and you walk around with a sense of loss and irritation at yourself. The thought that I won’t see Nugget taking her brave steps across the floor of the yarn shop is like a knife in my heart; so is the thought of not seeing Little K push the little red rocking chair around. I love those kids SO!HARD! And that’s crazy, because y’all know what a bitter and black place my heart is. It’ll be hard because I feel like a failure. I feel like I am stupid and useless and have wasted the last three years on something that didn’t work.

This is easy. I’m going to get to do a part of the job I love – dyeing yarn – all the time. Maybe even in my PJs. I am reassured by my loving family that I am not a failure; that if anything, the economy has failed me. That Ginger and Sharon and I were strong and amazing for moving forward with our dreams, and if I was brave enough to do that three years ago I am surely just as brave now. This is not a failure. This is a re-imagining of our dream, set to fit the horrible status of the US economy. We won’t have the enormous rent hanging over our heads like a guillotine, and that will make things easier for us. Also, I can find a part-time job (file this under “maybe easy, maybe hard”) and get a paycheck, thus ensuring that our new kittens will not suddenly be made homeless.

This is the worst thing ever in the history of worst things. I am a failure. I should be put in front of a firing squad. Wait – actually? Yeah. Smack me. My father dying was worse than this. If I got through that I can get through this. We are given burdens in this life; also shoulders.

This is ultimately going to be OK. We are going to be able to reach heights with our lines of things online that we just couldn’t do in a shop setting, because of all the overhead. And the people who love us, love hanging out with us – that won’t stop. My time is easily bought for cold beer, cute pets, Satchel’s, Sweet Dreams, and Yum Cupcakery. And also easily bought just for being able to hang out with you. So… call me! After July 1st, my dance card is pretty fucking free!

And you know what? A lot of the reason I haven’t been blogging about personal things is that I’ve wanted to share my fears with you for such a long time. And I couldn’t. We thought we might save the storefront. We though we might be able to swing it; maybe move, maybe downsize… but we didn’t know. And I’ve been so confused and worried and wanting to talk to you, but … didn’t want to start rumors about the yarn shop that would make people think we’ve closed and thus make things worse. So it’s been easier to not say anything at all, rather than try to be fluffy. I’m looking forward to blogging more, to letting more of my heart out on these pages.

I hope you’ll stick around – both here, and on our online shop. I hope you’ll still like me. Because I love you – HARD!

We left Gainesville Saturday morning, and got to Cocoa just in time for lunch. Aunt Gay and Uncle Joe were still having lunch, so we hung out at the bar/seating area between the pool and the beach and Tim read while I knitted. I also started to walk, barefoot, down to the ocean but was turned back by the burning hot sands. Seriously, y’all. BURNING HOT. Remind me not to do that barefoot again. After we hooked up with Aunt Gay, we dropped our stuff off in the room, admired the view, and then walked around to get the lay of the hotel – we were staying in a resort right next to the con hotel, and it was a quick pretty walk around a pool and across a parking lot to get to the other hotel. After hanging for a while at the hospitality suite (which was very well-run, with lots of great food to offer – much of it home-made and healthy which is a lovely change) it was back to our rooms to get ready for the evening. As you can tell from my photos, I could barely stop staring at the ocean long enough to get dressed.

Then it was off to the reception for drinks and milling around. I saw many old friends and overall it felt like a family reunion. Inside, at dinner, the worst thing happened – fucking allergy attack. I had gone for the Ranch dressing on the salad (not recognizing the gravy-like dressing that was the other option) and although I do love Ranch it’s a crapshoot — some Ranch dressings contain eggs, and I was squarely hit by this one. I did NOT want to be that person who makes a scene at her uncle’s big night, but unfortunately even though I practically have stock in Benadryl, I happened to have THE ONE BAG with me that doesn’t have any. I have a bottle in just about every other bag I own. FAIL! Fortunately Aunt Gay discreetly asked around and procured some for me, and by about the end of dinner the swelling in my throat had gone down enough that I could finish eating. I stayed away from desert, a lime cheesecake. No more egg for me tonight, thanks.

The award ceremony seemed to start off slowly, but must have gone faster than I thought because before I knew it, Connie Willis was giving the funniest and loveliest introduction for Uncle Joe. She also included Aunt Gay in much of her speech, and it was sweet and touching and belly-laugh producing. Uncle Joe’s acceptance speech was also fantastic – funny and thoughtful – and can I just say that he looked alternately dapper and cute as a GD button?! After the ceremony (and I’m not trying to brush off the winners of awards; but mostly I was there for Uncle Joe, not knowing any of the nominees very well. I’ve put many of their books on my list, though) we went back up to the hospitality suite and showed off his award (and a painting that he was given, which I seem not to have gotten a photograph of). After it got more and more crowded and loud, we retired back to the hotel and sat up for a little while longer, before finally crashing.

Sunday morning we took our time getting moving (again, I could hardly tear my eyes away from the ocean), and left Cocoa around 11 in order to stop at my mom’s and have lunch with her and Dave. I know it will surprise no-one that we went to JB’s Fish Camp. Anyone? Anyone surprised? No? Didn’t think so. After lunch it was time to get back up to Gainesville.

And that was our weekend. Mom, it was great to see you and Dave; and Aunt Gay and Uncle Joe, congratulations and many thanks for the weekend! And thanks also to Sharon and Ginger for letting me out of the shop for the weekend – I’m grateful to have been able to go down for this!

- People are fucking crazy. People are also fucking awesome. HELLO DICHOTOMY.

- When knitting a gauge swatch for size 6 needles, it is best to use size 6 needles. Not one 6 and one 5. In theory. WHO KNEW?!

- My mom is the coolest, and I’m not just saying that because yesterday was Mother’s Day.

- I am not very good at reaching out and asking for help.

- This last week, while tiring, has not been nearly as overwhelming as it could have been. This is because I have awesome rocking friends who line up to help me, in fact, WANT to help me, if only I can get over this thing about not asking for help.

- Kittehs are TEH CUTE!!!!1!

- Anxiety is made of fail.

- Margaritas are made of win.

- I am looking forward to seeing my Unca Joe get a lifetime achievement award.

- Found out the bar at the award ceremony is a cash bar; must remember to bring cash to event. Maybe they’ll have Margaritas. Or fruity rum drinks.

- Also must find nice dress to wear to event, in the next four days.

- The average shopper at Hanks Yarn and Fiber can bake a cookie that will make you weep (in a good way). One of them can also bake a molasses/Guinness bread that has caused about 15 women to get in line should anything ever happen to his wife (I think a couple of men are in that line, too).

- Tomorrow is Recovery Visit # 4 to the chiropractor, after not going for six months. I feel so much better after the last three weeks that I wonder how I did not die of pain, or kill someone, in the last six months.

- Big hairy dogs look really malnourished when you cut off 95% of their hair.

- I may need a waterproof pad of paper to keep in the shower, because I have a lot of ideas there that I have forgotten once I get out and dry my hair.

- I owe a few people some email, but I’m not nearly as behind as I have been in the past. Which is remarkable for having worked so many 11-hour days while Sharon was gone. It helps that I bring my laptop to work a lot, and sometimes have an hour here and there when nobody is in the shop; I can get some personal things done. However, that’s also usually when I really need to pee, and who wants to go pee when there’s nobody in the shop to protect you from roving bands of axe murders who will be waiting outside the bathroom door when you get out? NOT ME. I have seen that movie and it does not end well.

- I’m doing the class schedule for 10Q3 and am having some mental confunction (anxiety? WHAT ME WORRY?) over it. I’ve put myself down for a lot of classes. What if Tim gets a job in, say, Boston, and we have to up and move? What happens to my classes? Should I not put myself down for any classes? Then I would feel like I’m not contributing anything to the yarn store. Or what happens if the Publix being closed and the construction on 16th ruins our business and we can’t have any classes? WHAT IF THE MOON CAREENS OFF COURSE INTO THE EARTH AND LANDS ON OUR YARN SHOP? Someone please tell me that other shop owners  have irrational anxiety about things.

- I thought that the rudest thing I’d seen all week was the woman who came into the shop talking on her phone, who I had to interrupt in order to see if I could help her (and I did interrupt her phone call, TWICE, with a large smile, to see if she needed help with anything, because SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS PEOPLE). But that has just been topped by the woman walking around on her cell phone WITH IT ON SPEAKERPHONE.

- It’s a good thing that it’s 5 o’clock somewhere because I am ready for a drink.

I’m sure I had many more things to say, but I am now laughing too hard at Speakerphone Woman to type. Peace out, y’all.

So I want to knit a tank top.

But here’s where my pickiness gets the better of me.

Requirements of a tank top that I will wear, knitted or store-bought:

- must have straps wide enough to cover my bra straps, I don’t care that that’s not a fashion faux pas any more, I still think it makes you look like a drunk hooker. Can have a built-in bra, if it’s supportive enough for the girls. And trust me, my girls need a lot of support.

- must not need me to wear a strapless bra, I hate those things.

- must not have some sort of open design over the boobs that either shows the bra through the design or is so open that you need to wear a second tank top underneath it. If that’s the case, why not just wear the single tank top?! OK, actually I admit there are times I like the layered look – I’m addicted to tank tops and thin long-sleeved thermals. But for some reason when I think about knitting a tank top in the next couple of months, I just want to knit a single-layer tank! Gah!

I’m having a lot of trouble finding a tank top that meets all these apparently crazy needs, that is also something of which I like the look.

Oh yeah, and specific knitting requirements -

- Must get the gauge, or close enough to the gauge that I can mess with it, to be able to use the yarn I want to use.

- Must either be a pattern I already own (in a book or magazine) or a pattern I can easily get.

After spending about two days looking through books I own and Ravelry, I think I have it narrowed down to five. I’ll try to link to someone’s Flickr pics for those that aren’t on Ravelry who might want to see what I’m talking about (you guys do still read this blog, right?). Some of these could probably be called loose t-shirts rather than tanks, but I’ve had to open my criteria a bit because apparently I’m too narrow-minded.

Pucker – Pros: blousy, cute. Cons: not the right weight yarn so would have to fudge gauge, would have to order the book. Normally I would consider ordering the book a deal breaker, but I have to wait for the yarn to come in anyway; if I ordered the book this week it would still come in before the yarn does.

Lillian – Pros: Straps and bust meet my requirements, calls for very close gauge to what I’ll be getting. Free pattern. Cons: don’t love the pattern on the bottom half, although I could modify it to one that I like.

Buttercup -Pros: blousy, cute, looks good on chesty girls. Free pattern. Cons: often shown in photos with tank top underneath; however, designer says recent update to pattern has taken that into account and modifications have been made.

Valpuri -Pros: this has been on my “want” list for a long time (y’all know how much I love the cables). Free pattern. Cons: not really the gauge I’m looking for, and if the math didn’t work out for me to be able to follow the directions for a different size, it could go badly.

Mud Flap Girl – Pros: Also been on my “want” list for a while. Already own the book that the pattern is in. Hmm, gets closer to the gauge I need than I originally though. Cons: straps are too thin, although that could be modified, perhaps.

Oh, hey! I should put a poll up!

So… anyone have any thoughts? Because actually, after writing all this out (hey, guys, thanks for listening!) I don’t feel nearly as cranky as I did before. I have some great patterns listed here and perhaps one day will get around to making all five…

I had real plans to finish a ton of things in April, and while those didn’t pan out I still had a great month (in spite of Buddha’s health scare and subsequent death). I think I had such a great month because we closed the shop for Easter – bonus day off FOR THE WIN! – and I took some mental health days off – FIVE DAY WEEKEND FOR THE TRIPLE FUCKING AWESOME WIN – and I felt like that really gave me some time to step back and get my head together. I spent a lot of time being social, too; more than in a “normal” month. I met friends for ice cream. I had family and friends over, twice in the same week. I went out and did things. I need to remember to do things like that more often; I know I complain about being tired all the time, but being social and doing things is really very good for me. There’s a balance in there between “me time” and “fun times” and I really hit it in April.

One of the things I thought a lot about this month was Buddha’s death; while I worried about her (worried that she was uncomfortable, worried that she was in pain) I never really flipped out about her death. I asked my friend Jenn (always honest, luvyew cuteshews!) if because I didn’t feel that broken up about it, was I in denial since we’d lost three cats in the last year? Was I just not letting myself feel the grief because my lawd, isn’t three in one year enough? Was I sublimating? … and Jenn kind of half-smiled and allowed as how if there’s one thing I am not good at, it’s sublimating. Har! So I think it comes down to this: I’ve had Buddha her whole life. She was born behind the couch in my living room when I lived out at the farm the last time – she had a good early life as a farm cat, spent her teen years learning how to be cool and relaxed from my then-oldest-cat Selkie, spent her whole adult life here in this house as an indoor/outdoor cat chasing lizards, sleeping in the sun, watching birds, making friends in the house and in the neighborhood. She had a most excellent kitty life. And in the end, it wasn’t a quick tragic death and it wasn’t a slow painful death. She just sort of… wound down. She was even purring a little that morning, and never seemed to be hurting. We can all only hope for a life like that. I don’t feel that there was anything I failed to give her, any way that she was lacking. I feel like celebrating her life rather than mourning her passing. And obviously I feel like going through the whole thing again, because in about four or five more weeks we will be bringing these little bundles of joy into our home. Yay, kittens!

Most of my photos of the day were either of beautiful blooming flowers or shots while dogwalking. April is one of my favorite months in Gainesville. The temperature isn’t cold, isn’t hot; the flowers are blooming everywhere; mornings are just cool enough to make you believe summer won’t be so excruciating (HAHAHAHA) and even though pollen is killing all of us, I love being outdoors in April.

Oh! I did take a bonus photo to finish off March – Tim had finished wrangling the yarn last month and I finally got it out of my car and back into the shop where it could be donated (it was, and it was very appreciated – thanks, mom!).

The big news in Gainesville – besides the never-ending fuckery of the Publix construction in our parking lot (whoa, how did I not take a photo of that this month?) and the 16th Ave confunction, is that an awesome cupcake shop opened. We feel like a big city now – we have a cupcake store! Or maybe it’s just that our THIGHS feel bigger… because we have easier access to cupcakes. Either way, who cares?! CUPCAKES!

While just about a week ago I feel like I wrangled my shop knitting under control, overall I didn’t finish nearly as much as I thought I would this month (one, two, three, four things) (it would have been five but I still have yet to cut out and glue on the mouth). But my shop knitting is a little more manageable now than it was even ten days ago, and I’m feeling less panicked about deadlines and more able to take a day or two and work on non-deadline fun things for me.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand… that’s about it! How was your April? What are your plans for May?