Counting Blessings

I need to count blessings today. My psychic powers indicate that the weather is changing (no, no, that’s OK – no charge, I share my talents freely with y’all). Mostly, they are indicating this by causing my hips to ache like thunder and my shoulder to insist that there is an arrow sticking in it. It is interfering with my Real Life, to include activities that are extremely helpful for said conditions, like walking my kids to and from school. Or going up and down the stairs in the Den.

Thus it is obviously time (and past time) to give up my normal methods of arthritis pain control (positive thinking, tea, yoga, more positive thinking, herbal supplements, Motrin, Tylenol, chiropractics, whining and sulking) for calling my doctor and saying, “OK, I give up – what did you have in mind for a next step?”

The next step will undoubtedly involve needles (why must they always do blood work, I’m just asking!) and a series of very expensive prescriptions which will fail for reasons varying from ‘don’t work’ to ‘caused my stomach to erupt out of my body and run shrieking wildly down the street, much to the alarm of the neighbors’ for a while until we find the right thing.

So! Here are the happy thoughts I can come up with as I sit here waiting for my Tylenol PM to kick in…

I do not have to keep the Noro hat I am knitting. Shut up, Rabbitch , I can totally hear you cackling from way over here in California. I made a hat from this same Noro yarn once before (well, not this PRECISE ball of yarn, but Kureyon all the same), and I thought at the time, This yarn is kind of…well, but the color is so fabulous…but the YARN is so…

The word I didn’t want to say was “yucky”. Scratchy, stiff and otherwise I Don’t Like It. The color, I love. The yarn, not so much. But I don’t have to keep the hat when it is done and this is a happy thought. Although right now I am encouraging myself with the thought of hand washing it with conditioner to “soften it up”. (Seriously. Shut. Up. I can so totally hear you…)

I am almost done with the sleeves of the Yawn-Worthy Raglan, and this is a happy thing since the holidays are approaching (relentlessly) and I really need to get on with the holiday knitting. Also because this is a boatload of plain stockinette. There is no pattern, no color stranding, no cables, nothing to keep me from falling out of my rocking chair from sheer boredom-induced narcolepsy.

However, it is going fast, and that is another happy thought. It will also be one of those ‘plain but handsome’ sweaters and has a beautiful drape and a lovely feel to the yarn – as soft as the Noro is nasty, and very warm. As long as I didn’t bollix up the fit too badly, I should wear it this winter with great delight. It’ll look just like the sweaters you can get at Target for $9.88…

I found a pattern for lacy socks in a men’s size. I plan to make them in Pink for a Certain Someone. The thought of this fills me with a positively evil glee. BWA-HAHAHAHA. (Unfortunately, it is not my husband, so I won’t be able to torture this particular male with the demand that if he loves me even a tiny bit, he will wear these socks at least weekly – to the office.)

My favorite witch is out of her ‘Halloween Decorations’ box. She is standing on top of the cookie jar freaking out the children. She actually has a very gentle expression, but still – there is a witch on the cookie jar watching them, and this amuses me greatly. She may have to stay there indefinitely. My alter-ego, if you will. “Would you like a cookie, my precious? Go ahead, I won’t bite, {cackle, cackle, cackle}…”

Planet Organics has acorn squash in the boxes this week. Granted, I’m on the every-other-week box and this is not my week, but I am just delighted that it is coming into Squash Season. I love squash. I love it in soups, I love it in pies, I love it roasted with butter and mashed like potatoes. But I never buy it in the supermarket. I don’t know why not. The Planet Organics box has been a tremendous success for us; the only things I finally put on the ‘no, please’ list were the kale / collard green families (we just weren’t eating them, no matter how I tried to make them – even with bacon, we’d just pick out all the bacon and leave the greens) and tomatoes, because they kept getting smooshed in the box AND we have a local farmer who had some equally gorgeous things at the market.

There are many more blessings to recount, now that I’ve stopped to think about it – but I think it’s time to take advantage of my Window of Tylenol PM Sleepy to head for bed.

I love counting my blessings. Seems like every time I do so, I find that I’ve got “too many to list here”…hope it’s the same for y’all, from great ones to small…goodnight, and may your God be with you…