Emotional journey

After Chris and I got married last June, I decided I wanted to learn to let go of the various emotional barriers I've built throughout my life. I wanted to fully embrace being a woman, which meant fully accepting my body and my emotions. When I was in high school, I wanted nothing more than to be accepted as "one of the guys." I suppressed a lot of those "girly" feelings teenager girls/young women tend to have. For quite a while, including throughout college, I pretended not to be affected by the difficult or emotionally painful things that happened. I wanted to be strong, but it turns out I didn't understand the definition of strong. What I ended up doing was building a number of emotional walls in order to prevent any pain reaching me. In some cases, I buried the pain so deep that it's taken until now to fully surface it and work through it. This contributed to my bad habit of having good friends for a while and losing touch very quickly afterward - it was a way to forget, to not be reminded of whatever emotional event happened. I found myself doing this even in grad school, pushing away a close friend because being around her reminded me of things that happened in our broader circle of friends.

I knew I didn't want to continue to this pattern. I wanted to build life-long friendships, to grow together. This is something Chris has taught me. When Chris and I started dating, I realized it was ok to be who I really was, that what happened in my past doesn't dictate what happens in my present and future. I learned I can grow from these experiences rather that continuing to hide behind these walls. Sounds easy, but I'm still working it.

In order to continue my journey, I got the book Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom by Christiane Northrup. She walks through creating physical and emotional health from the feminine perspective. Her writing felt like a guide for me to find my own path. A lot of what she wrote spoke to me on a very deep level. It's been a similar experience to when I was visiting a counselor in undergrad, only this time, it has left me feeling more connected not just to myself, but to the female experience. I just finished the book this morning and feel inspired by all of the women who've worked through their own walls and experiences.

How to take care of succulents

Hello to all who took home one of the centerpieces from our wedding! I have received a number of questions from you about how to take care of succulents. I honestly had no bloody clue - this was the first time I'd ever had succulents! One thing that's happened to at least a couple of people that I know of is the plant grew really tall with the leaves spaced far apart and has now fallen over. Case in point:

What to do??? I started researching online. Apparently the reason the plant does this is because it's not getting enough light (hard to believe in a place like Minnesota). This is your opportunity to create more plants! I found a great how-to guide on Instructables.com with pictures on how to create more plants and what the plants will look like. I've already created a plant from a leaf off my succulent, which was really cool to see it grow. One thing I did differently: I stuck the leaf in dirt soon after breaking it off the original plant instead of drying it out for three days. It took a while to start growing because of the low winter light, but it was really fun to see it grow!

One other important tip that I just learned: if your succulents leaves are turning yellow and drying up, try watering it less. I thought before that that's just what these plants did, but I was apparently wrong and am guilty of this too. To show you how little water these plants need, I only watered my hens and chicks twice this entire winter!

Good luck and let me know how things are growing!

Back from the Land of Warmth

We're back! Banjo couldn't be more excited :) I haven't seen him run around our room that many times before - lots of excitement to burn off!

We had a great time, due to Klink and Klinkette (thank you!!!). They showed us all around Lake Jackson, including the beach, alligators, and crazy Mardi Gras people in Galveston. Luckily, all of those things were not in the same location.

We went to Brazos Bend State Park on Saturday to see some alligators. I've never been anywhere that big flesh-eating mammals were not behind some kind of enclosure! Thrilling and kind of terrifying at the same time! The alligators really didn't move, so I shouldn't have been nervous, but I've seen how fast they can move from watching Nature. Good thing was they were trying to soak up whatever warmth they could get through the clouds, and the largest one was very far away. Very cool sights.

We went to the Mardi Gras parade in Galveston. It was so foggy that condensation collected in our hair when we were walking along the beach beforehand! We were in the prime area to see the fireworks, but we could barely see them because of the fog. I've never seen anything like it! It was actually pretty cool to see the way the colors lit up the sky. The parade was very fun and included the Budweiser clydesdales! Those are some massive horses!

We hung out at the beach on Sunday. Luckily the fog was somewhat diminished so we could see the waves coming in. Even though it was cloudy, I managed to get a little bit of sunburn (oops). It was fun to see their dog Walter chasing balls into the ocean. Made me wonder what Banjo would think of the ocean...

I didn't eat anything too adventurous, although I ate fried crab in the shape of the crab. A bit off-putting. (I originally accidentally said clam...don't know why) I resisted the donut french toast (I felt like continuing to live).

Overall, it was great to get away. Makes me want to be able to take longer trips and especially makes me want to explore some more parks.

Off to 70 degrees...

We're off to Texas! We leave in about 20 minutes and I'm finally getting excited. I've been feeling more stressed out than anything. The rule of the universe seems to be that everything piles up immediately before a trip and this experience was no exception. Work was crazy the last few days and it felt like the week FLEW by at home too.

Banjo's in Farmington, and it was extremely difficult for me to leave him. I was crying on the way back home, which was unexpected. I felt bad because he had a stressful week and then I left him at Grandma and Grandpa's (thank you for watching him!). I know he'll be fine, but it's more that I miss him. We haven't even left yet!

I'm looking forward to starting a new book and starting another sock pattern (for myself this time). I'm most looking forward to visiting the Klinks!

What an adventure!

This weekend, we drove up to my parents' house to celebrate my mom's birthday (even though she said she tries to forget about it). We were aware that a storm would be passing through on Sunday when we were headed back, but we thought it would be something we could handle. The storm wasn't the problem as you will soon learn.

Sunday early afternoon: we decide to hit the road and hopefully get home before dark. If it was as bad as they said, we figured we should leave sooner rather than later. We head out and see nothing until about Princeton. Before that was a lot of wind, but nothing else. Once Princeton hit, it got slowly worse and still little accumulation.

We got as far as about Coon Rapids on Highway 10 when it happened: our car stalled while going 60 mph and wouldn't restart. That's something we didn't plan on! Chris was driving and got us to the shoulder quickly (luckily there was a downward slope) and we both thought SHIT. We figured it would take forever to get a tow because of the weather, and were trying to mentally prepare ourselves. Luckily Chris has AAA and we got a tow within 20-30 minutes of when we called it in. Chris and I got to ride in the truck, but Banjo had to stay in the car. We were both nervous about that, but he did ok.

Then came the next challenge: since we were getting it towed to our mechanic, how were we going to get home? The towing company tried to call us a cab, but they were going to 4 1/2 hours! We could walk home faster! Luckily we have amazing friends (thank you Kris!!!) that picked us up and drove us home.

Yesterday could have been so much worse, and luckily it wasn't. Thanks to everyone for your support! Today we're hoping the mechanic is open so they will hopefully be able to find something wrong with the car.

Knitting away

In these cold winter days, I've been knitting. Shocker. My latest project is making socks that are both comfortable and fit Christopher's unique feet. He has skinny legs, then huge arches, then average feet. This makes the gusset decrease very interesting and very unique.

For those wondering what the hell a gusset is, I found this picture from About.com that color-codes the different parts of the socks - the purple part is the gusset. In the socks for Chris, instead of the even line you see, his is a jagged line and fits his feet quite well.

As I mentioned, I knit Chris a pair of socks for Christmas. While they mostly fit, they were really tight over his arch and they were too thick of yarn of it to be comfortable. I am determined to make him a pair of socks that he really likes.

I have sock yarn that I made my first pair of socks with. I am knitting with size 0 needles, and for anyone out there that's a knitter, you can appreciate how small that it. I'm apparently really hard on small knitting needles. When I knit that first pair of socks ever, I was using size 2 wood double point needles. I snapped a needle in half very early on. Oops. This time I'm knitting with a metal circular needle, and while I haven't broken anything in half, I have managed to separate the metal needle tip from the plastic cable. Go me. I should really glue it back together, but I know I'm going to forget about it and I'll remember each time I knit with those needles.

So far I've only had to rip out portions of the gusset twice. I've had Chris try on his socks numerous times to make sure everything fits correctly. The good thing is once I figure everything out, I will have a pattern for future reference.

I've also been thinking about different patterns I can use to knit through my stash of yarn. The stash is slowly getting smaller, but I would like to get down to the point where all the yarn fits in the buffet.

Other than knitting, I've started work on landscape plans for the house. I took pictures last summer of various areas of the house that I want to work on. My mom has told me before how much fun it is to look through gardening magazines in the dead of winter. I have lots of specific plans for the backyard. I started work back there last year and want to build on that. What I'd eventually like the front yard to be nothing but garden. That will take some time though and lots more planning.

Another fun weekend

It seems as though we've been getting together with friends more often lately. I suppose most people are getting tired of being cooped up by the cold and need some kind of escape. I celebrated with at a friends' baby shower (co-ed showers are quite fun) and we got to see our long-lost and often inappropriate friends that moved out of state a while ago. It was great fun!

I am slowly working through my large stash of yarn. I want to get it down a lot before I buy more without having a project in mind. I have amassed quite a collection of remainders, leftovers from projects past. The small bits come in quite handy from time to time, but an entire drawer is filled with them and I am bound to create more! In the back of my mind, I keep mulling over the idea of trying to knit another sweater for myself (preferably one that would actually fit me!). I have a particular pattern in mind and have enough yarn to make it. I've just wanted to work through more of my non-dedicated stash first. Of course, there is lots of baby stuff to work on since so many of our friends are pregnant. I have had lots of fun planning and creating. Here's my latest creation: Mango the Giraffe