Thrihyrne

Many ups and downs last week; a highlight being a Mabon, mini-ceremony of just two of us in the park. I've also been able to become further reconciled to the reality that I may only sell a dozen or two total copies of anything I write. It really is absolutely fine. 'The Swan and the Seal' isn't yet available beyond Lulu, but should be at some point fairly soonish. I wrote a bit of new material for Defender of the Way while in Wenatchee, but haven't done much since (though typing in all of the edits took a while). I know it will all work out.

I'd planned to start getting up around 5:30 each day, do my 90 second plank and Pilates 100s and prior to starting work, spending some time at my altar and drawing a card from my Oracle deck to have as a daily focus. That lasted maybe 2 days before things got wonky. Well, I know what it is: I like to sleep in on my days off. But I still want to develop the habit of those pre-coffee mini-workouts and return to regular workouts of 3-4 a week. I know I'll feel better for it. I've also just been overindulging in general in a variety of ways and feel gross a lot of the time. I'll be trying to focus more on proteins and vegetables- something else I know future Kristi will be grateful for. It's just that present Kristi so often wants cheese rice or black beans with lots of sour cream or things similar.

I also have realized that going to Sewanee in November for a less than 72 hour trip just to sing through Godspell isn't a great idea for me right now, especially if I tried going solo. Too many ways that could go really, really wrong, especially having to rent a car and driving up and down the Mountain. I'm disappointed, but there's going to be a huge choir reunion in the spring with the retirement of Dr. Delcamp, who's been organist/choirmaster there for... 37 years. A long time. ;) Makes way more sense to plan that trip in April and maybe also spend a day or two in Nashville to show Evan another of my former haunts.

My role at work is very stressful, and several of my colleagues and I have major morale demoralization and feel utterly trapped. We apply for other positions and are told, "You're too important to Resolutions." Ergo, it's becoming a dead end position. I had a whirlwind of interviews for a new position last week but in the end needed to gracefully withdraw as it was blatantly obvious that this position needed to be done from HQ. And, um, no- though I was asked multiple times, Evan and I are not and never will be relocating to San Francisco. But the past two months have had my share of making poor decisions, which has led to sick time at work, additional stress as I detox, and the pain of seeing Evan suffer. I tend not to remember much during those times, but he does. Still, these occurrences have been far less frequent than ever in the past seven years. The support Evan gives while always acknowledging that I'm an autonomous human being and free to make all of my own decisions— just also acknowledging that at some point if those decisions continue to wreak havoc, that there would be consequences as he has very healthy boundaries— is tremendous and has helped keep me from the worst of situations. But I've needed to make a new commitment to putting the decision to stay in my right mind and make wise decisions for months on end (with help, of course) as primary. I'll ruin the rest if I don't do that and get back to the even-keeled body chemistry I had going earlier this year.

In other more light-hearted news, well, I'm back on the right track. I've also been truly gifted by the universe via friends, several of whom have sent links to other job possibilities all in a cluster. I do have another interview for a different team tomorrow at my current employer (which I'm not naming because I know we have a social media team and I'd rather them not find my LJ), and I'll hope that I can move over to that group. I'll also try to post a little more often than twice a month. :P

While it took until the next to last day at the beach as part of Evan's-family-vacation to realize that much of my continued feelings of awkward/trapped/frustration had to do with prior events not associated with this trip (but there were plenty of similar enough things that triggered the memories), much of the time there was pleasant enough. One key issue was that I'd built up the idea of a quiet, productive escape for months when there was no way that was ever going to happen with 4 households people including small children and a baby. I think I must have been willfully ignoring that aspect when getting it in my head that it would be a focused writing time.

So that's now going to be my focus for August. I'm sort of between knitting projects, and it will be a positive challenge for me to really set specific writing goals for myself for this month. Especially since I do have a story due to be posted at the end of it!

That's about all I have to report. My shoulder and hip still hurt like hell though I do my exercises and continue to do some of my short work-out DVDs at home; the 2 lateral positions I'd applied for at work, one I didn't get (but they let me know they hope to keep adding to their team and if so, for me please to apply again) and the other one is still hanging out there. I'll be fine no matter what; I'm comfortable for the most part in my Resolutions role, and as noted, these other two specializations are lateral positions, so I really have no idea if/when I'll get a raise. Which is a bummer, especially when I do keep appearing at the top of productivity and high satisfaction scores. I did talk with my team lead quite candidly about that prior to my PTO, but who knows.

August (my least favorite month here as it's usually relentlessly sunny, and that after a month of July being relentlessly sunny) is my time to cocoon, to write, to experiment with a more protein-rich diet, and that's probably enough. I'm likely to be whiny this month, but at least I'm self-aware enough of that. And given how rude people are in talking at full voice late at night and early in the morning, it's probably for the best that I'm not armed. Even with a super soaker. :P

evannichols had an overarching Word for the Year last year which was 'celebrate.' He hasn't been doing that kind of representational statement for many years, but we were discussing it this morning, it being a new calendar year and all. He's focusing on finishing things, so I suggested 'closure.' And since, of course, I wanted to think about me equally, I thought about my own goals and what word would be my go-to for the year. It came pretty quickly: tenacity. I'm very, very skilled at starting over. But it's been since the first half-decade of the 00s since I've worked on my staying power. This is the year that I want to hold on to what I have: the integral presence of Evan in my life; engaging employment; staying in this residence for a year; and, most importantly, keeping thoughts of 'this is all too good to be true, the universe loves bleak irony and some horrible tragedy is right around the corner to show me how too good to be true this is' at bay, whatever that takes in as healthy an approach as I can muster.

So. TENACITY

Jury duty was nearly as uneventful yesterday as Monday, though at 3:15 or so I was finally called to go to a courtroom! We were interviewed for a while to decide which of us would be unbiased and the appropriate jurors for the case, which was going to go on for the next day, perhaps two. Now, if this had happened on Monday I would have been stoked, but Wednesday is my day off and if I had been selected, it would have meant (I think) that I'd just be in jury duty and not paid or if I was paid, that would all be fine and good, but that day off would not necessarily be rescheduled. To my immense relief I was not chosen, and was able to go and leave the courtroom. The judge thanked us and I spontaneously replied, "Thank you for inviting us to be a part of the process," which she really seemed to appreciate. Fun fact I learned from this process and the juror movie we watched yesterday morning: there are more women judges than men in the state of Oregon. ♥

My left pinkie toe still hurts a lot. I've been icing and elevating it each day when I come home. I realize this may resemble a rib injury in that it just hurts for a long while as it heals. Ah, well. I did buy an exercise ball yesterday, something I'd been intending to do for months, so I can add in that element to my toning, but I think jogging again is still a little ways off. My sister sent me some birthday money so I can try out hot yoga, which I'm very excited about. :)

Today after doing laundry I'll head out to the jeweler who has resized my rings and pay for them and wear them, then go to visit sanguinity until lunchtime or so and then have quiet time at home. Yay!!

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't note the splendid evening we had with oh_that_jocelyn on Monday. There was yummy food and delightful conversation and gifts! I am grateful that Evan and his wife emerita are still close and that I, too, enjoy her company, very much. As Evan noted, she and I do have a lot in common: we both love cats, we love decorative stationery arts… ;)

I'm back at Airbnb effective immediately (though I don't have my laptop; I'll retrieve it tomorrow when I'm back at our Portland office) and very grateful. I have learned a tremendous amount about my own strength during this, as well as the amazing support and love that is granted so fully to me. Thank you all for your kind words during what was a pretty challenging several days!

This has been a while coming, and I haven't really known how to post about it. I received a call from my mother this morning; my maternal grandmother, Mymable, died last night. She's been declining for a year now, and has been on hospice care for several months. Evan had kindly offered to drive us up there if I wanted to, but since she wasn't really recognizing people, I decided to keep my memories which were of seeing her a couple of years ago (she's been living in Bellevue, WA, outside of Seattle) at her 90th birthday party and during visits when I saw my aunt. Mymable was 92, and is quite likely why I became such an enthusiastic knitter. I have so many fond memories of visiting her and Grandaddy in Ruston, Louisiana- including the year we lived there in 1981-82. I'm not sad for her, but mostly for my own mother, who isn't doing very well health-wise herself, and neither is my stepdad. I feel a bit helpless in that I don't effectively how to be there for her. The rest of her siblings were in Bellevue with Mymable when she died, and mom was back in Virginia. Her choice, of course, but her own life is rather challenging. My own inability (or discomfort with) to reach out for help when I really need it, well, I do believe I came by that honestly from both sides of my family of origin. But it has made me very sad this morning that finally I'm in a solid place emotionally myself, with the very strong support of my own partner now, to reach out to her, and there were so many years when she and I didn't really relate as adult to adult.

All that said, I'm rather melancholy as I get ready to work remotely for the first time. I'm so grateful that I'll be swept into emails and in the comforting environment of Evan's living space, and that he's here and wants to comfort me as needed.

Eventually I'll get a hold of some pictures of me with Mymable and post them. I don't have any of my own photo albums right now, but I'll rectify that in the months to come, too.

This entry may get a bit long, so feel free to pick and choose topics or just skim. But I wanted to post an update.
( knitting stuff )

( job stuff )

( life and relationship stuff )

So, yay. It feels pretty amazing to be able to post something like this.

( Here be an update )

Oh, and in an unrelated element, I'd received an email from former roommate Julia's phone carrier as though I was going to pay it. I called customer service and was reassured that I'd not hear from them again. Well, I got another email from them referencing her phone account! I just deleted it. Not my problem and certainly not my phone. :P

It's been right at two weeks since I had a real turnaround about myself, my situation, and steps I began taking to make positive, quantifiable changes. One of those is to exercise regularly, and this morning I upped my distance to over two miles, a decently-lengthed 35-40 minutes of cardio. This pleases me greatly. I'll never become a distance runner or anything like that; this is conditioning and trying to establish revived, healthy habits. I've also been measuring my portions so that I have a much better sense of how much I'm eating, and what. I do eat quite healthfully, but I was a bit stunned at just how much peanut butter I'd been ingesting with my granny smiths, and huge bowls of yogurt with cereal, almonds and craisins. The fact finding has been most illuminating. There's also two consecutive weeks of staying in my right mind (yay!) and job interviews. Very important. I had a screening call about a position at Reed College yesterday that not only was 15 minutes late, but the questions she asked me were so dry, impersonal, and standard banal. I was really surprised, and frankly caught off guard by it. It's rare that I don't establish a rapport with someone almost immediately, but my conversation yesterday was pretty awkward. They're at the very beginning of their search and won't put someone in place until mid-July, and frankly I'd be quite surprised if I make it into a second round.

As part of continuing on, however, I have an in-person interview for a part-time administrative/desk position at a NE community center and I'm looking forward to that. I'll also head to a place called Scrap that snottygrrl told me about, which conveniently is only about three blocks from my interview site. That said, I really shouldn't buy anything as I went CRAZY at my favorite Goodwill yesterday, coming out about $65 poorer, but rich in spring clothes (suitable for the weather and climate here) and shoes in the anticipation of being back in the workforce in the reasonably near future. I didn't bring a whole lot of spring/summer clothes when I initially packed to relocate and it will be a while before I head back to Virginia for a final extraction of all of my belongings.

evannichols will be picking me up today after his workday at BHFT and I'll be with him through Monday. Not only is that fabulous, but we'll be spending about a day and a half at the coast at a beach house with friends of his sister's as part of her belated birthday celebrations. This is the Pacific beach, ruggedly beautiful with frigid water, not the Atlantic or Gulf. It's my kind of place. :)

Which means that I'll be heading off with evannichols to spend the weekend with him. It's been a long week. I have made good progress on my knitted vest, though I had to back up a couple of rows last night as I'd gotten off with the cables. Now it's all good. This is my first experience in knitting something from the top down, but it seems to be going pretty well now that I've repeated the patterns a few times. I have to be very careful to keep up with what rows I'm on as the cables in front and back don't align. Maybe I'll see if I can borrow Evan's camera to take a picture of it and update my Ravelry page.

I was working on Evan's notebooks and kept hearing a cat meow. The cats here are pretty quiet, but it kept going on so I went out to the living room. I found myself saying out loud, "Oh. The TV is meowing." The TV is pretty much on all day until the house owners go to bed, and it was on Animal Planet— a story about kittens. For someone who hasn't owned a TV in years, and never enjoyed having it on in the background, this has taken me some getting used to.

I also discovered that I have not one but two cousins living in the Portland suburbs. I'd heard from the one cousin in early March but somehow had forgotten that his younger sister (with whom he's living) lives in the area. Matthew has had some similar issues to me, and some much more challenging, requiring hospitalization. It's cool that he reached out to me, and hopefully we'll meet up in the next couple of weeks.

Happy Friday!