Midweek Confessions

Last week, when E linked up to my post on emyselfandi, I got over 300 hits.  This is about 4 times what my traffic typically is.  So, for my first confession, that is the main reason why I’m linking up today.  That was such an ego boost for my little blog here!

I’m knitting a scarf for me.  I feel a little bit guilty about it, because I’m pregnant and so many of my friends are pregnant.  I should be knitting baby stuff, right?  I knit during my downtime at work.  My co-workers will ask me what I’m making, and I say “A scarf for me, BUT as soon as I finish it, I’m going to start knitting for Baby.”  This is true, but I’m always very quick to mention what I’m going to knit next to avoid any judgmental eyes (that would probably never come).

I miss Knoxville.  So does Gregg.  I idealized moving away, now I idealize moving back.  We like it here on the Eastern Shore (more and more-its rhyme time, apparently).  We love our house and our farm, and I love my job (once I drive the hour to get there).  But, we miss home and the people there.

Aspen

We got a new dog.  Her name is Aspen.  She is enormous.  More than 100 pounds of Great Pyranees?  Probably so.  This is a confession, because she makes 5 pets for us.  But!  She’s a working girl.  Gregg got her to keep predators away from…

Sheep

these three (hopefully) pregnant girls…

Chickens

as well as these mama hens.  I think she’s doing a good job because she spends all night barking.

Last confession, I don’t really like turkey that much.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Confessions, cont’d.

I have confess that I am a city girl.  I think that the country is good for my soul, but there a lot of aspects of country living that elude me.  Gardening.  I do not know how to garden.  Its so not as easy as throwing seeds in the ground.  At least not for me.

Baking bread.  Every attempt of mine has been a massive failure.  Yeast and I simply do not get along.  What am I doing?  I’m naming the activities that I think a farmer’s wife should be able to do well.  I’m a good learner, but I need a teacher to get me started on a couple of how-to’s of farmer’s wife living.  Quilting is another thing I want to do, but I need to be taught how to do it.  I’m not as hard on myself about this one because I feel like it is a craft that needs to be honed.  Gardening and bread making seem to me like they should be no-brainers.

A man and his chickens.

I feel like a farmer’s wife should be a do-it-yourselfer.  And I want to be a do-it-yourselfer.  I just need to learn.  Meg was my knitting teacher initially and then YouTube took over where she left off.  My mom was actually my sewing teacher, “Thread the bobbin,” etc.  YouTube took over for her as well.

Writing this blog has made me want to set goals for myself.  The goals of a farmer’s wife and otherwise.  But I get intimidated to set goals in such a public forum and not meet them.  One reason I probably want to set goals is my friend E.  She’s my blog guru.  E sets goals for herself, posts them on her blog and then talks about her progress.  Sometimes she meets her goals and sometimes she doesn’t.  She invites her readers into the process.  Picture me with a big fake smile and a cheesy voice: Its more about the joy in the journey than the end result.  Cheesy but true.

I had been intimidated by this public goal setting when I wrote my Lent post, but, now I’m going to put it all out there.  During Lent, after asking a series of questions, I decided to focus on peace and friendship.  Instead of giving up something, I’m doing something.  For peace, I’m reading scripture every day.  Even if its only one word.  I set the bar very low for myself, so that I could actually commit.  For friendship, I’m talking to friends on the phone (at least two a week).  I’m also trying to reach out to one soon-to-be friend here on the Eastern Shore each week.  This is much more of a challenge.

E has lists of goals that she’s cleverly named 30 before 30 and 12 in ’12.  I think I’ll call mine the Bucket List of a Farmer’s Wife.  I’m not sure what my time frame should be.  Maybe I should go in seasons like a farmer.  Also, I think with me and goals, less is more.  When I try to do and commit myself to too much, failure is imminent.

Winter 2012:

Learn how to make bread.

Finish knitting my sweater.

Spring 2012:

Create a garden.

Summer 2012:

Tend the garden and eat from the garden.

Make a wearable item of clothing with the sewing machine.

Fall 2012:

Make a quilt.

For the year:

Stick to a budget without going crazy.

Volunteer.

Make friends.

Find a church.

Read an intimidating classic. (Originally, I wanted to read one each season, but…I’m just too intimidated.)

Feel comfortable and confident as a Nurse Practitioner.

Run/walk/bike/do yoga consistently.  Not all of these, just be active consistently.

I read somewhere that writing down your goals can actually prevent you from achieving them.  “They” said that its as if your brain feels as if you have achieved your goal because you said it out loud or wrote it down.  Hopefully this won’t be the case for me.

I know that achieving goals does not equal happiness.  And I don’t want to go into this goal-setting process with that attitude.  How do I want to think of them?  Just as life-enhancing-activities or soul-stretching-hobbies or I don’t know.  I’d like to make my life and the lives of those around me better by moving towards these goals.

Confessions

I hate taking out the trash.  As in, I won’t do it.  What I will do is bag it up, take the bag out of the trashcan, and set it by the door.  Could I be any more obvious?

Gregg and I have kitchen issues.  He likes hearty meals, while I like lighter fare.  Since I haven’t been working, I’ve been cooking more than usual.   Last night was my best hearty meal yet.  I think it was a success because it tasted like a McDonald’s hamburger.

My library “spending” sprees are not cutting it any more.  I want to go shopping for real.  We have so many antique stores and a handful of thrift stores in the area.  I’ve got to go.

I had a job interview across the Bay.  I surprised myself when I was excited pass shopping centers filled with stores like Target, Barnes & Noble, Buffalo Wild Wings, and TJMaxx.  Even the Y got me excited.  Like I said, we have some thrift stores on the Shore, but not much else.  There’s a Wal-Mart 40 minutes away and two old-school department stores called Peebles and Roses.  Can you see why Target and TJMaxx thrilled me?  I really  want this job.

I’m late for midweek confessions.  Two weeks in a row.

Confessions

This my second attempt at linking up with emyselfandi’s midweek confessions.  Last week, I did not spell my blog’s title correctly.  This week…success!  Its spelled correctly.

Painkillers.  Something we use or consume or do in order to kill the pain.  We’ve all got ’em, right?  “They” say that we use these painkillers in order provide a temporary relief from the pain that we feel.  One of mine, surprisingly, is shopping.  Currently, Gregg and I do not have the expendable income to spend tons of money.  So, to get around this hiccup of no money and still kill the pain, I go to the library.  This week, when I went for a visit to the world of free books, I decided that I would get as many books as I wanted: 4 plus one book on tape.  Ambitious, I know.  And a free way to kill the pain.  I’m being dramatic.  We don’t have internet at our house, so earlier this week I went to a coffee shop for 7 hours.  I needed to kill the pain of computer-staring.

One time I told Gregg, in jest, that I want to be a stay-at-home-mom without the kids.

I’m very competitive.  There’s a card game called Contract Rummy that I refuse to play.  Our best friends in Knoxville taught us the game.  Its 60% luck and 40% strategy.  I always lose, always do poorly.  I like the game, but I hate losing, so I refuse to play.

This competitiveness is present in life, too.  Last week I was talking about blog envy.  I think I have life envy, too.

I’m embracing the TV watching now.  I’ve almost finished knitting my first sweater.  Just in time for Spring.

So, I mentioned that we don’t have internet.  I’ve been known to sit in the parking lot of a coffee shop in my car and steal (is it really stealing?) internet access so that I don’t have to go in and buy something.

I want to be an artist.  I want to paint and write and make things.  And I want to get paid for it.

I used to hate talking on the phone.  But, lately, the phone has been my lifeline to people that care about me and to people that I care about.

I feel better after this week’s confession than I did after last week’s.  Thanks E.

Confessions

My friend E at emyselfandi celebrates Wednesdays by sharing her midweek confessions.  Today, I’m going to join her. [I  “linked up” to E’s blog, and I definitely mispelled my blog title.  Awesome.]

Here we go:

I’ve been suffering from a bout of “blog envy.”  I’ve been thinking things like, “I don’t have enough followers/comments/readers/etcetera.”  I’m not sure what to do about these thoughts other than flush them down the toilet.

This morning, I woke up and didn’t hear the dogs.  I thought that Gregg had taken them to work.  I was thankful not to have “anyone to take care of but myself.”  (I feed them and walk them.  Its not like having a baby.) It turned out that they had been secluded to the sunroom because they got dirty this morning.  I’ll have to take care of them after all.

I’ve started drying our clothes on the clothesline out back.  This is partly to save energy, partly because our dryer takes three cycles to get clothes dry, and partly because I think they look pretty hanging up, blowing in the sea breeze.

I’ve been watching more TV at nighttime since we moved here.  I knit and watch TV.  Its one of those things that I don’t like but do any ways.  It makes me feel yuglck.

In an effort to continually move towards Team Grace, I’m hoping that these confessions will not weigh me down.  (Even though writing them down is feeling more heavy than I anticipated.)  I’m hoping that I’ll be able to write them down and release them.

I love the mornings.  (Not really a confession, but I’m getting depressed with all the confession negativity.)  I’ve been reading and writing and journaling and being quiet in our sunroom ever since we got to this house.  I haven’t been walking in the mornings like I originally planned, but these mornings have become sacred to me.  I think that having no internet at the house helps.  I can just be without diving into emails and pinterest and all the other amazing distractions of the world wide web.