Little Things
Strange things happen when you spend a couple of weeks obsessing on a job interview. The body starts having bizarre reactions to stress, for example, the bottoms of my feet blistered up and started peeling! Very weird. It doesn't hurt, but is kind of itchy. Another odd stress reaction occurred last night when I left my purse in the women's restroom of the college and got part of the way home before I realized it. Someone turned it in to the campus police, who called my house and really freaked Dan out (he was wondering why my purse was someplace I was not, and worrying that I had been accosted). Of course I couldn't call him, since my money and my phone were in the purse. But I was fine and luckily had put the car keys in my pocket, so I made it home, and then we both went to the campus police to pick up the purse. The only thing missing was a $5 bill, and I felt very lucky.
In the past two weeks of focusing on other things, I also ran out of food and toilet paper, errands and obligations piled up, and once I had the emotional letdown of the whole thing being over, not exactly having gone the way I hoped, those things were waiting to pounce to make me feel even less efficient and even less successful. So yesterday I buckled down and got the bills paid and the groceries bought, and today I'm tackling the errands.
Brenda had a great thought in the comments. She suggested that when you interview for a job, you should get a goodie bag for your trouble, and I think that is absolutely brilliant. Unfortunately, I did not get a goodie bag for my two weeks of effort (more, really, if you count the hours and weeks spent putting together the perfect application), so I have been treating myself a little bit, making my own goodie bag, if you will. Some of the treats really wouldn't fit into a bag, and there is no particular theme to my purchases, but they all felt pretty good.
I sprang for a bale of peat moss and some compost for the backyard, and was seduced by some cunning little shade plants that wanted to come home with me. The phaleanopsis orchid that the car dealership gave me for spending too much money (and which, incidentally, none of my friends is willing to adopt) got a new pot:
I also got some orchid food so I can at least make an effort at keeping it alive.
While on safari searching for Mother's Day cards, an absolutely gorgeous "Mint Chocolate" coleus flirted its velvety leaves my way, and I succumbed:
Since these are outdoor plants, their chances for survival are reasonably good.
I also bought pens. I've been on a crusade for a couple of months now to purge the house of all Bad Pens - the cruddy ballpoints with the crusty ink at the tips, the gel rollers that mete out a parsimonious flow of ink and kind of scratch across the page. All the pens exhibiting undesirable pen behavior are now landfill. There is nothing like the feel of a good pen laying down a generous flow of ink on a page. So I picked up a package of pens that have given satisfying performance in the past as well. It's the little things, you know.
I put the Lace Edged Raglan temporarily aside since all the body pieces are done and only the sleeves remain. I plan to do a provisional cast on and start the sleeves this evening, so I can adjust sleeve length later if I need to. Instead, I started the Bellatrix Socks, and was rewarded with a highly entertaining sock pattern in bright-and-perky yarn. I'm loving how these are turning out - so cheerful:
Today, it's off to the library to conduct some neglected business, grading of papers that students are getting anxious to have back, and maybe another trip to the hardware store to get more compost since I seriously underestimated my compost needs. And knitting, more knitting, the knitting of sleeves.























