12 in 12 for July - just a wee bit late

Alas, and just a wee bit chagrined about how I did in June with that month's selection. 

Not So Well. 

But then again ... if looked at from a different angle, pretty durn well after all. 

June's selection was to pick a big life goal and do something every day towards achieving it. The motivation behind this habit which I would like to incorporate into my every day life is the desire to not let time pass without making a push to do the things I want ... and suddenly waking up and finding out it's too late. Behind THAT motivation was a vague sensation that some things ... not necessarily a bucket list of them ... but just things I'd always thought of doing were no where near happening. For example - taking a boat up a fjord in Norway. 

The trouble is - I got stuck on that Norway trip and couldn't think of anything else on the list and was too tired, too busy, and maybe just too chicken/lazy to move on even that known desire. The trip idea stems from a photograph in my 4th grade geography book, taken from the top of a mountain, looking down on a single boat steaming up a fjord. I have never ever forgotten that picture and how I felt the first time I saw it. So... allow me to pause and at least look up fjord tours on the internet ... 

www.norwaynutshell.com/en/explore-th
e-fjords/sognefjord-in-a-nutshell/#prices 

There - I feel a lot better. 

Trouble is - throughout June I couldn't seem to think of any other Big Life Goals that I wanted to achieve. Obviously I need to carve out some dreaming time to create such a list. I will do that this month - both for work and for my life outside of work - because ... I would love some destinations. 

But even though I couldn't come up with any New Ideas, in fact, I did do something every day that moved me towards a B L G. I tracked my food daily. And I drank water regularly. And I exercised when I was feeling healthy and did not exercise when my allgergy/cold was at its worse. And I got right back into the exercise routine immediately I felt better.  And I made serious progress in my weight loss and my nutritional health.

Every day I did something that got me closer to the  B L G  of a healthy body! So July was a resounding success that showed up on the scale and in the red dress I wore on Friday to a wedding - a size 12 red dress from a shop that does not shrink the numbers on their size tags. 

 

And I prayed positive good healthy prayers. Maybe not every day but frequently.
I also complimented staff - if not every day - often, in order to let them know that I value them and exactly why I do. 
And I did this during a particularly stressful period of work and bad weather and upper respiratory crud. 

What do you know - now I think about it - I did pretty durn well in June. 

So what's on tap for July? 

Well - I am going to pick something I already began adding way back in January - because I am still having stress and bad weather and even a tad bit of lung congestion. I choose: 

4. The Charles Schwab list at work 
At least he's the one credited with the idea - you list the top 5 things you need to do tomorrow. Prioritize that list. Then - do those 5 things first, every day, even if you do nothing else. If there is something on that list you did not do today, it becomes the top item on tomorrow's list. The key here is you do it every day. I've diddled with this and know it works - but - I've not been consistent with it. 

I would absolutely love to end July with a string of accomplishments behind me and a wide open August with some vacation time to kick back and play in. I actually have the accumulated leave - but I wouldn't take it if I was behind at work. There are 23 days left in July and let's say 14 or even 21 days in August to apply the Charles Schwab List to my work life. Then I could take the 3rd or 4th week of August off ... and Stay Home!!!!  Yep. And right now - a week off, doing only what I wanted to do, or nothing at all, is a BLG. I know that Charles Schwab list is just the ticket to a week of stress free freedom. 

So that's my 12 in 12 selection for July - See ya on vacation.

Back from the Beach

Sigh. I can't believe the beach vacation I'd waited so long to take is now a thing of the past and the present I'm living in right now is so hectic I hardly have time to reflect upon it's many treasures. I knew taking a vacation the week before Summer Reading Clubs begin at the library was pushing things mighty close to the edge, but that was the only week we could all agree to cluster and even with months of planning several people we'd hoped to have with us had to cry off - including ThePrince (Consort) and LD. In addition, I caught a wicked cold that resisted naps, flonaise, and lots of fluids. I am coughing still and tempted to call in professional help if the tightness in my chest continues. Nonetheless, we managed to squeeze out some fun ... Joke. We had a blast. 

The weather was surprisingly good - if cool. Certainly no long days of rain imprisoned us. Some mornings were cloudy with a little drizzle but I never used either an umbrella or raincoat. The first few days at the ocean were so calm you'd think the very earth was meditating.

Later in the week big winds churned up even bigger waves. The beach was closed to swimming on Friday and it probably should have been on Thursday. The closest I got to diving in on either day was a splashy walk along the shore's edge. 

There was lots of time to spend with family - new and old! Love me some nephews, nieces and great nephews!

Looks like the wild seas brought out the teenager in some folk - it certainly allowed me to wax nostalgic about shaggin' on the beach. Looks like it did the same for sis.

We are no dummies, though - and knew better than to brave the tunnels in Norfolk on a summer Saturday - so BH and I convoyed west below the Dismal Swamp and took the Jamestown Ferry home. Of course ... that such a route home took us past the Williamsburg outlets had nothing to do with our decision ... And yes - there was Other Shopping Therapy on this vacation, but I will worry about my Visa bill in July ... at Tara.

All in all it was a lovely beach vacation that will be a treat to look back on - when I make it through the madness that is summer reading in the library. When it's the end of August. When I will need another vacation.

Happy Hump Day!

Winter at Virginia Beach

In the middle of last week BD suggested we run away to the beach for the weekend. Actually what he suggested was taking a week off and heading to the Caribbean - or New Orleans or someplace south - and warm - to which I answered with a shriek and then a garbled and totally useless explanation about how I am in technical overload at work and I am the head geek. It was garbled mostly because the moment I mention technology in connection with my job I get the lecture about libraries are books and card catalogs (and silent) and what is the purpose of technology in a library and usually that is where the conversation stops. Unanswerable questions get silence but the lead up to them sometimes gets a turkey gobble.

Still - Someone is sensitive to spousal tensions and kindly backed off the idea of a week's vacation 3 weeks after a 2 week Christmas vacation with the suggestion "How about a weekend at VaBeach?"  - which got a much more enthusiastic response. So once I got to a stopping place at werk on Friday we tooled down the highway to that strip of sand along the southern foot of the state. 

It's seriously off-season this time of year - as far as I could tell, the only thing going on this weekend was a kiddie beauty pageant and I only know that because I saw a family checking out on Saturday with an arm full of prom dresses for an 8 year old. Atlantic Ave and even Pacific Ave, one block in from the ocean, were pretty much deserted all the time. Left turns were a breeze and you could drive the 60 blocks on cruise control and never tap a break. Enough restaurants were open to feed we few hungry souls and the boardwalk was steadily occupied with strollers, joggers and bicycles, but never crowded. and of course, off-season prices made ocean front rooms fit nicely within our budget.

One think you better look out for, though, when visiting VaBeach.The handicapped parking spaces along the road are NOT easy to see - the signs face out rather than towards the unsuspecting driver, as she pulls up to the curb. Also, the curbs are NOT painted with a distinguishing color. And though the streets are deserted by tourists and locals at 9 o'clock on a Friday night, there are still patrol cars every 3 blocks, just as if it were summertime. Ask me how I know.

Eh. I do not $weat the $mall $tuff. Or even the Big $tuff when I am on vacation.

We were driving around so late at night in part because it was so easy to. BD loves to bargain for a hotel room and in January at VaBeach, it's easy to pull in and out of parking lots and ask. In the end we settled for a Holiday Inn Express because it had an ocean front room on a top floor with a king size bed, pool and hot tub and nice breakfast setup. We took advantage of the relaxed atmosphere to scout out other hostelry and we found an older motel with some interesting amenities that are tempting us to go back down there next month. Not for Valentine's day or President's Day weekend - which we did once years ago, only to find that rates jumped up, rooms filled up and restaurants, the few that were open, were very crowded, but certainly towards the end of February when even the library director will be ready to run away to join the circus or walk the beach.

Which is my favorite thing to do at the beach after swimming and just one step ahead of feeding sea gulls stale white bread. Bess's Beach Rules start off with - Whenever visiting the beach, feet must step into the surf. Here is proof that I am a good rule follower. We walked about 8 miles on Saturday and maybe 2 of them I went barefoot. I won't do that again. The sand was cold and my feet were numb when I got back to where I'd stashed my shoes.




This is what you see at VaBeach - while strolling towards Ft. Storey - cargo ships leaving Cape Henry.










The sand looks almost empty - but there were actually a good number of people enjoying the sunshine. A few surfers. Lots of very well behaved dogs with even more responsible owners. Nothing nasty anywhere I stepped.

We went first up the beach, away from the blazing winter sunshine - from about 29th street to 60th and back. Then it was off to one of the few sandwich/pizza places for lunch (Chicken chipotle sub for TheQueen) and an afternoon stroll from the hotel to Rudee's Inlet to watch the boats go in and out - a dredger, which was in full sucking operation

and

the whale watching boat which we did not go on. BD seemed to lose interest in the extra ticket price after we'd had our encounter with VaBeach's Best Blues. It was okay though - we saw lots of dolphins capering in the waves. That was enough wildlife for me.

There's a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in visiting the beach. Time was (decades ago), after Easter, the first girl to convince her parents to drive a carload of friends down to the beach for the day was given instant Coolest Chick Status. We could usually count on Myra Medina's parents, Cuban exiles who really missed the ocean, to take us down 2 weeks before Memorial Day weekend. With extreme pleading I could sometimes get Daddy to drive us down too. The object was to get as sunburned as possible so that you could prove your claim when you went to school on Monday. Remember those Copertone ads? Baby oil as a suntan lotion? Then you probably also remember when there were a lot of buildings that looked like these:
  

One of the oddest things about traveling is how .... everybody is someone you don't know. Here, at home, in my little world, I am TheQueen of TheLibrary. I'm just me and everyone is comfortable with that. When I get out in the world - where nobody knows me at all - I realize - I am an old lady. At least - I look like I might be somebody's grandma. I look around and see what hot young things look like - nope. not me. And I look at the young parents ... nope - not that either - and then there are the really old folk, you know, white hair - glasses - wattles. That can't be me, can it?

hmmm. okay. Yes. I guess it can be. Well. Not the white hair but that's because I am such good friends with the L'Oreal and Clairol boxes. But it is a surprise that I might not look like who I feel like inside. BD doesn't think about that kind of thing and luckily, his eyesight is so bad we're all soft and fuzzy with, in my case, a sort of peach colored glow. Guess I shouldn't care either, hmmm?  Both of us are great fans of playing with the sea gulls. These guys got to know our balcony and even long after the loaf of bread was gone, would swing buy the window, just in case, you know?

After a day of beach hiking -  about 8 miles altogether - we flopped down in the hotel room and watched television. Once upon a time television watching was a high point of all our travels. Because we don't get TV reception at our house we would often stay up all night long watching whatever was the current version of Hawaii 5-0 and Mary Tyler Moore Show. We even enjoyed the ads because they were all fresh and new to us. But then along came cable TV which didn't even have ads and we were charmed - even if the same movie about a Droid girl in tight leather pants who was being chased by robot killing thugs with spiked chokers around their necks seemed to be on every channel. I am sure I watched some version of that movie for a dozen years. But now, TV is ... well, I'm sorry to say but it's such an experiment in living life with ADD that I found it hard to focus on even the most erudite BBC-esque cultural offering.

Dinner was a completely unnecessary, but wickedly fun, trip to Captain George's Seafood Restaurant where a large buffet topped off a week's worth of caloric need.

And then it was Sunday. Instead of doing a repeat of the hike - or even driving up to 60th street and walking up the beach to Ft. Story - we decided to drive west through Chesapeake and Suffolk and take the Jamestown Ferry home. You also get to drive through some of the best ham country in VA. At Smithfield we hit a traffic snarl but at Surry we made a left onto 31 to go just enough out of our way to get the world's best ham sandwiches at Edwards Store.
mmm. mmm. I'm still tasting that smokey salty goodness.


It's just a scant bit of a way from Ham Heaven to the ferry where there are More Hungry Birds. I shared my second bag of white bread with 2 kids traveling with their Dad and we had a ball. This free trip across the James River, right past the sight of the original First English colony,  is a delight. You pass the obelisk, the archaeological site, the reconstructed ships and then you're heading up the highway to West Point where you can cross the Mattaponi and the Pamunkey without paying a toll like you do on the York - and you miss all the shopping and sprawl in Gloucester county.

Home again, jiggety jig by 4 o'clock to get the first good cup of coffee in 2 days. My own dogs, ever forgiving, cuddled up against us (Jack is a great one for siting on your feet). A quick scroll through my email and a pot of chicken soup pretty much finished off the weekend for TheQueen. It's back o werk werk werk for now.

Ganging aft agley - those plans of mine

I am officially on vacation. I don't have to go back to work till the 29th of November, which seems like a long time from now. Considering I was only in the office a day and a half this week, I have almost the feeling of a 2 week-er about this vacation. But this is not the vacation I was expecting to take - which was an extended weekend in NYC with special friends that included - along with delicious meals, thrumming urban sightseeing, and Real Shopping - two evenings at the opera. Instead, I will be spending quality knitting time here, in their waiting room, while BD has More Eye Surgery. 

Ah well, the best laid plans of mice and men, hmmm? And even agley plans can have their silver linings. I mean - there will be quality knitting time. There will be other operas and other trips. But there are only these eyes and the prospect of better health for a big darling. All in all - I'd say it's a fair swap. 

Besides - I am never sorry to spend time at my house with my dogs and my toys. Right now I'm moving slowly down the bodice front of my Soho Dress. The directions are for you to knit the two pieces at the same time - these shoulder fronts, both right and left. Using 2 separate balls of yarn, I might add. Now. I know there are eager super efficient types who do this all the time. I have a friend who always knits 2 socks on 2 circulars, gleefully exclaiming that this way she never suffers from second sock syndrome. I tried that once. It was horrible! Theoretically you're supposed to get through things faster this way - it's so efficient. 

What nobody tells you is that the 2 balls of yarn are always getting twisted around the cable and around each other. You pull on the yarn and suddenly your garment is strangled. Nothing flows. Nothing moves till you painstakingly weave balls of yarn back the way they were twisted. Where is the time saving when you are constantly stopping to untwist the mess?  And for that matter,if you're going to knit 2 socks at a time, why not 4 or 6 or 20? Well. Here's why. 

The Reality

The Dream

And as for Second Sock Syndrome (for non knitters it means you finish one sock but can't bring yourself to knit the same durn thing all over again so you end up with .... yup. Just one sock) -  my solution is to just wear a sock once it's finished.  Who's looking beneath your trouser cuffs? And miss matched socks are stylish - in a youthful funky way. 

The generous and very warm hearted author of Modern Top-down Knitting wrote and told me Not To Worry - that she didn't knit 2 shoulder pieces at a time either - never had done and didn't write the directions that way either. Evidently a pattern editor or perhaps a publishing director, had decreed that 2 pieces at a time was their policy for knitting patterns. Since no less a knitting designer than Elizabet Zimmermann struggled with this same editorial policy - I'd say Ms. McGowan is in good company. EZ tells the story of how her first seamless circular fair isle yoke sweater pattern ended up being printed as a flat knitting design with the yoke sewn on after the body was assembled!! I mean - what were they thinking?!? Why would a pattern publisher want to torture so many knitters? Getting revenge for childhood sufferings? sheesh!

Anyway - I have nothing but More Adobe Colored Knitting to display right now and I am sure, it's Tangled Adobe Colored Knitting. Even though every stitch of this dress is interesting for TheQueen to look at, I will spare my viewers till I have a little more geometry to display. Instead I close with yet another beautiful autumn view of TheCastle's back yard. Since I am on vacation, it just might be a good day for a picnic, hmm?