Spending money on oneself

I just booked a ticket to go back East to a Knit Camp. Hey, stop laughing!

I had saved a good pile for the France trip, and even after Lair of the Bear, had some left over. Then realized that part of the France trip was "me time"--vacation time for just me. So I started looking around at things I might want to do by myself. Looked at Stitches West and East, Camp Stitches East and Camp Stitches West, and Meg Swanson's Knitting Camp. They were all interesting but pretty pricey.

Then I remembered that my GLBT-Knit email list was planning a "Knit Camp" in the East in April! And it's in Bennington, VT. Due to life being much smaller back there (!), Bennington is just a couple of hours from Albany, NY, where my friend Ari lives and whom I'd love to see again, and just a couple of hours from Northhampton, MA, where my friend Dharma has lived and where incredible WEBS is based, just a few hours from Syracuse and Ithaca, where other friends live. (I am still finding this hard to believe.)

So I had the booking up on my computer last week and... did nothing. Had it up yesterday and... did nothing. Had it up this morning, up to the "do it" page and... couldn't click that button.

This is the first serious $$ trip I've ever booked just for myself. It is a big freakin' deal for me. Lots of issues of spending, frugality, worthiness, and entitlement come up.

Finally, I click the button. Am required to call a toll-free number to confirm the credit-card information, and... I've booked the wrong day. Yikes! She kindly changes the reservation, costing me a whole $5 more, and then finds me a rental car for $10 less than I was able to find anywhere. Looks like I'm going to Vermont!

Happy birthday, Oprah!

43 years ago today, my mother says, was a very happy day in her life.

And Oprah was born, too.

Another silly boy story

I mentioned to the boy that my birthday is this Monday. He asks, Do you want a present? And I say, sure, I'd love one. I start mentioning, yarn... and he says, Shoes? I say, OK, wondering where this is going.

OK, he says. All I need are two boxes and some laces. I can make you some shoes.

LOL! Um, thanks.

Ah-choo!

This blog is sure dusty!

Sorry about no updates, folks. I guess I just got out of the habit...

Well. This is a good place to update about the France trip.

The France trip is off. Let me start at the beginning... way back when G was maybe 1 or 2, my sister gave me France on Foot and said she'd love to do a walking trip of France with me when G is(was) 5. France has all these great walking trails, called Grandes Randonees, all over. They're well marked and not parallel to roads (so you wouldn't be inhaling exhaust the whole way). There are a zillion maps of them, too. I thought it sounded great.

Fast-forward to when he was 5. She decided he was too young, and that we should go the next year (2006). She also said he needed to have more overnights away from me so that he could tolerate me being gone for 3 weeks. (Is the word "bossy" popping up in your mind? Isn't that interesting?)

So I started scheduling overnights for him--sleepovers with friends, long weekends with his Aunties and with Dharma and TGF, and we started saving up for the trip and scheduling it. My mom pops up and says she'll pay to fly all the kids over and then leave Paris for Corbusier's chapel at Rondchamps, something she's wanted to see for ten years. I waver in my resolve to have G stay with her for a full week, as a day seems to exhaust her. We start moving the dates around--maybe he'll stay with the Aunties for 1.5 weeks and the kids will be with us for 1.5 weeks. We have a hard time finding a place big enough for us all in Paris that's affordable. We have a hard time scheduling it, between my church conference's annual meeting in May and her tax-returns deadline in April. Finally, she says, "Would you have enough saved up and be more comfortable going in September?" Yes, I say, with a sigh of relief.

She calls 2 days later and says she doesn't want to interrupt my niece's first year of high school (this fall) and that she's just going to take her kids in May. I find myself not surprised at all. We have had other conflicts with this trip--she has been concerned that I'm not walking 5 miles a week (no, playing ice hockey doesn't count) and that I won't be able to keep up. I'm concerned that she'd want to walk so fast that we couldn't enjoy the countryside.

I also realize, after she calls, that perhaps now is just not the best time to take G to Europe. I think of the things I've enjoyed doing in France--touring museums, walking the Eiffel Tower, relaxing in cafes, enjoying good restaurants--and none of them are particularly suitable for an energetic 7-year-old who hasn't been drugged. My sights turn toward Disneyland, someplace we've gone together and totally enjoyed, the both of us. I start planning that trip.

One night soon after, I ask him the open-ended question: If we were to go on vacation, where would you want to go? He asks (he is so my kid), "Will we go whereever I say?" I say No, but I'll listen to your idea and decide. He remembers a place with "lots of little houses." We brainstorm and come up with the Lair of the Bear, where we went in the summer of 2005. Oh yeah!!! We would both enjoy that. There are planned, scheduled activities for the kids, a pool and plenty of hiking as well as opportunities for downtime for me, and no dishes to wash or meals to prepare. And with what I've saved for France, we can afford it easily! I contact the Lair registrar and she reacts enthusiastically--she'll send off forms as soon as they're available.

Camp Oski, here we come! Go Bears!

I don't think this debate will ever end

The other day, G asked me, "Why did we stop going to the brown church, Mommy?" I said, "What do you mean?" and he said, "You said we used to go to the brown church. We go to the red church now. Why did we change churches?"

We have never, in his lifetime, attended another church (as members). He thinks our church's color is red--perhaps brownish red, but red all the same.

I think it's brown (reddish brown, I'll give you).

You can see the color in the shingles in one of the main-page photos. I am not crazy!

Our family

So the other night, G says, "In our family, we have a Mommy and a G_____... um... a dog, Maddy... um... two guinea pigs, Lovey and Molly... and... just under one thousand worms."

LOL

We do! (The worms live in a box downstairs.)

New Year's Revolutions

Spurred on by Franklin's hilarious list and MamaCate's reasonable one, I present my New Year's Retributions:

Restitution 1: Resume exercising 3-5 times per week. Make it fun or silly or both. Consider resuming biking to work. (Find a safe path, because yoiks, the driving paths I use are not safe biking paths.

Constitution 2: Continue to be mindful about yarn purchases. Not stopping, mind you, and not doing a "knit from your stash"-along nor stash-along or any kind of -along, unless it's a sex-with-K-along. That could be good. (Andalusion #2A?)

Lilliputian 3: Continue to enjoy my boy. Perhaps with a bit more salt and/or Tabasco. Eeew! I had to do it.

Dissolution 4: Drink more water. But not while swimming in it.

Prosecution 5: Keep finishing knitting projects I start. Maybe finish an old one in between each new one I start and finish. Ha, that implies I start & finish single projects at a time these days. Amusing.

Elocution 6: Balance my time better among the boy, K, and my friends so I can see all of them enough. The friends have suffered lately and it's time for more suffering... oops, I mean dinner parties.

Distribution 7: Don't take any of the above way too seriously lest Jennie becomes a dull boy. And we know we can't let that happen.