... it's very odd reading that article, for me, and realizing that for most of my life I've gone by the "innate characteristics" model. And when I make a big mistake, I would abandon the whole endeavor because I got convinced that I sucked at whatever it was I was doing. One of the reasons why I changed jobs every two or three years and took the excuse that all the career things say that in order to get raises, that that was what worked.

Xilinx was different. I stuck with them for eight years, and it's the longest I've stayed in one place for that kind of time.

And I'm finally in a situation where I can't just abandon things. And it's with things that I actually believed, for a while, that I had no innate ability at. Spinning and knitting have been my love for so long just because I wasn't expected to do them, and I learned everything through the doing it the hard way and making mistakes on my own without having to present a face to anyone about it. I did it mostly for fun and for myself.

Maybe that's why it was so depressing to be at the guild show, and suddenly worry about how I came across... rather than just enjoying what I was doing and where I was. Maybe I need to go back and figure something out...

( Read more... )

My stupid brain is running around like a hamster in a wheel.

Mostly negative shit.

I did find that my old dentist in Bellevue may well still be there. I may have to go to him to get my bridge taken out, fixed, adjusted, cleaned, and replaced or something. I am not happy with how the dentist here did things. I may as well get a new toothguard at the same time, too. I love the one he gave me eight years ago.

So I have some hope.

The garden grows.

The kid matures. Jet amazes me each day. His patience and growing understanding humble and bring me joy every day.

I'm so damned glad I married John. He's trying to cut my negative feedback loop whenever I ask him for help, and he's helping.

He also helped me put up a bamboo pea trellis. I hope the rabbits and birds STOP EATING my young plants! The local growing place recommended putting down blood meal (not a vegan product, but entirely organic) all around the border of the raised garden to keep the rabbits out. It'll help with the nitrogen in the garden, too. Whoo.

---- political tag warning warning -----

I need something to occupy my too fast brain before I burn it out on what's wrong with the world. John has lots of pictures from Biloxi and NOLA and... wow... it's still so broken. I hate the guilt trip tactics of Planned Parenthood because it reminds me, way too much, of the same kinds of guilt tactics of the Other Side. I'll give PP money, but I asked them to take me off every call and mailing list they have. Sure, the Supreme Court is doing scary bad stuff, but I KNEW it was going to happen when all those other freakin' people elected BUSH for God's sake and I VOTED the other way, but damnit you're not going to guilt trip me into thinking I'm responsible for the damned SC ruling...

----- political tag end ------

On the odd religious note... I found out the other day that Presidential Hopeful Barack Obama is a member of a United Church of Christ church, the same as me. The same left wing, every one is responsible for their own relationship with God, no authorities in structure or practice, every congregation decides for themselves how they want to go about things, everyone who wants to be a part of it can be part of the synod, and Biblically informed denomination that I'm a part of. I'm not sure if I'm freaked out or relieved or if it's just that hope is more painful than despair?

I didn't get home, yesterday, until 5:30. This is, now, unusual for me. Yeah, yeah, I've had my share of bad dinners at work, thank you, but... ahem...

I had to ride the exercise bike just to make my brain STOP, and then I made egg rolls. Mei Hamilton had this great idea of just rolling the made rolls in vegetable oil and then baking them instead of deep frying them. She'd filled hers with a Vietnamese style filling. I filled mine with garlic chives, resuscitated shitakes, glass noodles, mung bean sprouts I'd grown myself, carrots, cabbage, seasoned pork, garlic, ginger, and plenty of soy and wine and bits of corn starch. All the innards had to be stir-fried and cooked through before I mixed 'em together with sesame oil and soy and a bit of white wine. John and I rolled 'em, oiled them gently, and we baked 'em at 350 for about 20 minutes.

By then it was already 8. Yeah, it took me a while.

The boys had played at the neighbor's house for a long while, went to Home Depot to get something necessary for the sprinklers, and other stuff.

We ate. The egg rolls were great with fish sauce. I'd turned 'em once during baking and they came out crispy and HOT enough to burn mouths, but very, very tasty. Yum. Jet had a whole package of raw ramen and ate the whole thing. I took him to bed soon after we'd eaten as well.

Jet fell asleep instantly.

John went to bed half an hour later. I said, "One more row..." and then found that I liked watching "The Secret Life Of..." cereal and waffles and then Alton Brown was his engaging self with a cake episode and I peered at the clock and thought, "Oh, 10:40, I should go to bed..." and then I looked closer, "Oh... 12:40am. Grr. But... hey... look at the sweater, it now kinda looks like a sweater!" I can see the chin of the Sun, now, and I'm getting to the mouth of the crying Moon, and the brocade look of the swirls in the two-color knitting are very, very nice.

Deadlines at work are now drop-dead-lines. I'm distracting myself any way I can, and being completely exhausted when I lay down was actually useful last night.

Jet and I fought all morning while I was trying to get everything ready to send him to school. I was abrupt, angry, and shouting a lot and Jet was, rightfully, furious with me, but being four he was still interested in just doing what he was doing... right when I finally had everything into the car but him, Jet announced he had to use the potty.

I was grateful that he told me so there was no accident in the car. BUT he then sat down to poop and sat and sat and then started singing...

I just held my head and wanted to scream.

Ahem. Yes. I am, on occasion a very cranky mother.

Jet said, "I don't like it when you're cranky, Mom. I don't like it at all."

"I don't like it either Jet."

And I had to just sit and think about why the hell was I so angry?? I'd been like this all yesterday afternoon and evening, and I was equally grumpy while putting Jet to bed. I'm covering for something. And I poked around and sure enough, yesterday, at work I'd been in a conversation that was morally repugnant to me. I'd said some things that I realized, this morning, that I really, really regreted saying and didn't say some things that I really regretted NOT saying. And I was really angry at the others for assuming certain things and really angry with myself for letting myself down.

I then said to Jet, "Momma's cranky 'cause of stuff at work. It's not you." He nodded and then wiggled to his own internal music.

I left Jet to his peaceful bowel movement, and just breathed for a while and planned my apology. Then we got him to school, half an hour late, which the teachers didn't really seem to mind, and Jet slipped right into the stream of things after getting a promise of a root beer float when Daddy picked him up.

I went to work and wrote the apology and sent it along with a coherent argument against the concensus I had found wrong. There was a rather inflammatory reply by one of the guys, which I expected, and I wrote a reasonable reply, I think, cutting out inflammatory stuff.

I am calmer, now. I have, written on my public white board, "Jet sez, 'Phyllis is cranky.'" There have been a few good laughs at that. I hope to treat Jet more fairly tonight. We'll see.