MY EYES!!!!

This is my right eye. It's in reverse, so those are my eyelashes on the bottom.


And here is my left eye.





Cool, isn't it?


Thanks again to everyone, for your very kind comments in the previous posts!

September

It's been a busy, but mostly enjoyable month! Adam's dad and step mum came for a visit, for the first two weeks of September, and we stayed at my parents house on the Cape. We spent the week mostly in different towns on the Cape, and a day in Newport.


Here is my mom, the moose and I, at Aquinnah on the Vineyard.





On Ad's birthday we went out to a hibachi restaurant.


Here is a photo of Paul and I. We've been seeing each other for some months now, and he's a really wonderful man. On the anniversary of my wedding, he bought me dinner to celebrate and then we watched my wedding video. That about sums up how utterly cool this man is.

We were in Newport and my sister was playing paparazzi with my camera.


And this is Paul's dog, on our way to a marsh about a mile from my parent's house.



And now a few shots of Abbey and Blossom, for the dog lovers.

Abbey is so proud she got her stick!





Running through the marsh- click on this one to make it bigger!



Thanks to everyone for your kind comments about the hair, I am enjoying it. Here's a photo of me I actually like. Paul took it.



Do me a favor, and don't make this one any bigger!!

I'm working on a couple knitting projects and still need to photograph the log cabin, but am trying to sort out the best way to do that, because it's big!!

Heading to Ravelry now to get some inspiration for my next project. I think I need to do a massive de-stash/yarn give away soon. Stay tuned!

Big Change

God, I've really been crap at updating this. It's like anything else, a little too much goes by and you realize it's going to take longer than usual to update things, so you put it off, and it snowballs!

I have a lot of reading to catch up on, but here is a quick snip of what's been up with me lately. The 8th was the third anniversary of Adam's death. It seems amazing to me that it has been three years. Seems like such a long time without him sometimes, and then at other times... well, it's all a little too vivid, if you know what I mean.

I wanted to do something nice on the anniversary of the day Adam died, and so I chopped and donated my hair.

Here I am at the salon.


I had just had a facial, so I'm a little shiny and mussed and make up free, not really the best time for photos, but there you have it.



I went to see my stylist, Aimee, who is amazing, and the first person in the styling business that I absolutely trust and would follow anywhere.

We put my hair into a braid, and... she cut.





Again, I'm looking rough, I had not really slept the night before, and had done a lot of crying, so focus on the hair and the gorgeous Aimee, ok?




And here it is, about 13 inches, to go to a charity that makes wigs for cancer patients.


Rinsing hair color. For the most part, the color (which she did beautifully), is more or less my natural color, but with some golden and copper strands put underneath.


Cutting...


And done.




I love it, actually. I can't believe how much hair is gone! I'm still getting used to it, but Aimee is a damn genius.




Here is a kind of blurry one, but you can see how lovely the shape of the back of it is, I think it's quite elegant, really. Oh, and i'm not naked in this, it just kind of looks like I am!!




So, I have the new hair. Or new lack of hair, I suppose.

I have about ten mosaics to finish up and photograph for you, and also the log cabin blanket is done, but I'm trying to work out the best way to photograph that. I'm also finishing the Bar Harbor Shell Bag, and plugging away at that massive cape from Scarf Style, in Silky Wool, which I think I'm going to try to dye when it's done. THAT should be interesting.

Still Alive!

Hello, everyone. I'm sorry I haven't updated this blog lately, or had much time to check in and see how all of you are doing, but things have been hectic, both in good ways, and bad.

I had a wonderful visit to Adam's family in the UK, and my nephew Ben, now 5, is just an amazing kid, and reminds me of Adam in a lot of ways. Today would have been my 4th wedding anniversary, actually. It feels like forever, and also like it was just yesterday. I'm doing ok, so far.

My aunt hasn't been too well lately, so I've been trying to help with her as much as I can.

Also, we had to put my family dog, Maggie to sleep last week, which was absolutely heartbreaking.


She was 14, and had a wonderful, pampered life. She's had arthritis in her back legs, and over the last week, started falling down... it was time, but that didn't make it any easier.

My favorite Maggie story... She had always had a little bit of a problem with cookies- mainly that my mother fed her them constantly. She always brought the paper in every morning, and would get a cookie for this. So she was put on a diet, and was absolutely miserable. One morning, she went out to get the paper, and was gone for a while... when she came back, she was lumbering along, dragging 6 newspapers! I suppose in her mind, if one paper equalled one cookie....
We returned the purloined papers, and she got her snacks.

We love you, Mags.


Been doing a lot of mosaicing, and will soon have photos of the massive log cabin blanket I've nearly finished!

Hope you're all well. More soon.

I Hate Deep Cleansing Breaths

Ok folks, here's the thing. We all know I'm a little mentally imbalanced. It isn't that I was born crazy. Well, to be perfectly honest, I've always been a little crazy, but before it was in the fun, spontaneous, unexpected crazy way. The good crazy. Now I'm just crazy-crazy, but as you all know, I am working on it. With my new BFF, Valium. If any of the Valium people are reading this, and want to sponsor my blog, do let me know, as I am your biggest fan. Seriously.

Ok, I digress. I need to join the gym. I really do, and I shall join, and soon,even though the gym I want to go to is crazy fucking expensive. I mean, for the price of this gym, I should get complimentary bikini waxes and massages by the hot male trainers, but, sadly, that is not included. It does, however, have a pool, and so in the spirit of health, I am going to go forth and get down with the geriatrics in the arthritis 10 am swim. Rock. I don't mind working out with a bunch of old people. In fact, once in college, my roommate got me to go to her gym for 3 months of this "body sculpting" class. Which is honestly a special kind of hell. It was an hour of crunches, lunges, and then arm workouts. This was in sunny Florida, home of freakishly large insects, and lots of old people. And every old lady in that class kicked my ass. We'd stumble out of the gym, light up a cigarette and go for a cool down shopping session at the local Super Wal Mart. Now, before you give me shit about Wal-Mart, let me tell you that once the Woolworths across from campus closed down, this was the ONLY place to shop for anything. So we'd hit Wal-Mart and go through the aisles filling our carts with the stuff we'd eat later. Gummy bears for me, cereal for her. Sadly folks, this was probably the healthiest time of my life.

So I have been to the gym, I've had my ass kicked, cardiac-ally speaking by a 70 year old woman with large permed hair who wore full make up to work out, and I was ok with that.

I also took a somatopsychology class, and every 3rd lesson we would do Tai Chi. I liked Tai Chi, and it was more of a work out than I expected. At that time, I would really get into it, meditate, get stretchy, and whatnot. It was good.

Here's the thing. Since Ad died, I can't stand to be still with my thoughts. I don't sleep in anymore, once my eyes open, I'm up. No more languishing, sliding my leg across the sheets to find a cool spot, and flipping my pillow over for the same. Now, I hope out of bed, and when I knit or do mosaic, I watch tv or talk on the phone while I do it. Bottom line, I need to keep my mind as busy as possible, because letting it rest means accessing things I have no desire to remember.

One thing my therapist has really wanted me to do is deep breathing exercises. I keep telling him I can't. Recently, he asked me to close my eyes and take some deep cleansing breaths. The first one wasn't so bad. The second was was ok, and with the third one, I started feeling uncomfortable. It was probably around breath 15, when tears started rolling down my cheeks, that he said to stop. He believes me now. Apparently, he could see my shoulders continue to rise and rise without relaxing, my hands slowly curled into fists, and my breathing got very shaky.

I didn't notice these things, because I was busy trying not to have a complete freak-out, but it brought home an interesting realization. What the professionals like to call "a break through."

I am not comfortable inside my own body. Doesn't that just suck? I mean, it's not such a surprise. Physically, in the past three years I've developed 2 auto-immune diseases, I crushed my ankle and was bedridden for three months, I had a horrid steroid reaction that made me look like a pregnant bearded lady crossed with a gremlin that had just gotten wet (fat pads on my back). And then I watched as my husband died, and my dad got cancer, and oh, fuck me. Why would I like any part of this body?

Before, at least the mental was ok, you know? Apart from my vampire-like avoidance of mirrors when I was huge and bloated with no discernible neck and a beard that my waxer (to her credit, she was right) refused to wax off, claiming I'd then always have it.

But now, my body is fucked, I never know how I'll feel, how much pain I'll be in, how tired. I'm jabbing myself in the thigh regularly with needles, which has gotten a little tougher lately because I've lost some of the extra weight I'd put on trying to quit smoking and don't have that much fat in my thighs. Which normally would be a GOOD thing, but it makes it harder to find some nice fat to jab that needle into, and I fear I will soon be bending over and begging friends to jab a needle in my ass. Now, that will be an interesting friend test, don't you think?

On top of the physical blech, I'm kind of an emotional wreck. So much so, I can't do deep calming breathing! What kind of special crazy do you have to be to not be able to handle deep cleansing breathing?!

This kind of crazy. But that's ok.