Hello!

I'm back. I didn't mean to be gone, but sometimes gone is just where you are.

What happened: the day after I wrote my last entry, my mom had a stroke. Now, before you get all worried and concerned, let me say that she recovered fully within 48 hours. The stroke was of the mild variety. My dad recognized the symptoms (confusion, blurred speech), called 911, and basically saved the day.

But it was a rough 48 hours, as you might imagine. My mom had her stroke on Friday afternoon, and the next day I had to get up early and drive two hours to do a library presentation. I slept maybe three hours, tops, and that's pushing it.

By Sunday morning, my mom had returned to normal, and two days after that she was back home. So you'd think everything would be fine, and things did seem fine for a few days. It snowed--a lot--and the boys had two days off of school, and the Man stayed home from work and we played outside and built fires in the fireplace and watched the Olympics.

But a week or so ago, the post-traumatic stress kicked in. I felt it, my parents felt it, everybody did. My mom had come so far in her fight against lymphoma, and we'd been feeling so good, like the battle was over, and then--a stroke? How could that be? One of my sisters-in-law said she felt worse after hearing about the stroke than the cancer diagnosis, and I knew exactly what she meant. It wasn't just horrifying, it was so, so sad.

But this week we all seem to be better. The sun was out Sunday, and the Man and I worked in the garden. Jack had a big debate tournament, and Will shot baskets until his arms got too tired to shoot anymore. Things are settling back down. But it still makes me nervous whenever the phone rings. What will the news be today?

***

Okay, something else. Coincidence or fate--or what? I'll try to make this quick. Last November, we started attending the church down the road simply because it was the church down the road. We wanted to try a parish approach to church-going. This church, St. Paul's, is Lutheran, so I like it because it's close to my Episcopalian roots (weekly communion, enough pomp to be satisfying, not so much as to be distracting). The Man likes it because it's low-key and the pastor is funny and the people are nice without being too in your face.

Fast forward a week or so ago. I was watching a YouTube video of one of my favorite writers, Ann Patchett, interviewing another one of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott. Ann asked Anne what she'd read recently that she really liked, and Anne mentioned a book called Stations of the Heart. I looked it up on my library's website, and there it was, so I put it on hold.

When I picked up the book last Wednesday, I saw that the author, Richard Lischer, is a professor at Duke Divinity School, which is just down the road from me. He mentions early on that he sometimes preaches at Duke Chapel, where we attended services for many years. Neat, I thought. I've probably seen him preach.

The book is a heartbreaking memoir about the death of Lischer's adult son, Adam, from cancer in 2005. It's about Lischer's faith and his son's faith. Lischer is a Lutheran. Guess where he goes to church? Yep, St. Paul's. Or at least he did at the time of his son's death.

Wait--he still does! Because guess who was sitting behind me at church on Sunday? Richard Lischer. I recognized him from his author photo.

What do you make of that? Coincidence? Or, if not, then what? For what reason? I don't know. but I passed the peace with Richard Lischer and felt sad about his son, whose death I had recently wept over.

What a strange, mysterious world.

Frugality Report #1 + Quilt

Finished Circle of Geese! And I must share with you a close-up of 
the quilting, which I did on my own machine ...

So fun to machine quilt a small quilt. The big ones can be grueling.

So anyway, the frugality report. Last night I sat down and did the numbers. I compared my expenditures from January 2014 to January 2013, and am happy to report that I spent $387 less this January, even though I had a hard time bringing down my grocery bill as much as I wanted.

The trick to this frugality business seems to be simple: don't spend money. Hmmm ... go figure. I think the Big Trick is to remember that you're trying not to spend money. It needs to be a habit, your default position.

So I'm practicing saying no--to the magazine, to the Target trip, to the unnecessary errand that will burn up gas. 

The good news is, I spent a ton last February. I apparently lived at Target all month long. So this February's going to look pretty good in comparison. Can I go another month without a Target run? Stay tuned to find out.

***

I don't have a lot to report today, but I wanted to post, just to say hi and wonder if your February has been as gloomy as ours has been so far.

Have I mentioned that I spend thirty minutes every morning in front of my S.A.D. lamp and that I would highly recommend this to you if you get the winter blues? I got my lamp last year, and I wish I'd gotten one years ago. It has made a huge difference in how I feel over the winter months.

Having said that, I will also say that yesterday's cold rain was almost more than I could bear.

And having made the heart of this post about frugality, may I also say that I believe very strongly in treats. I think in February it's important to have the following things on hand: good chocolate, good tea, a furry dog or cat, and friends to go out to coffee or lunch with. Also: good books, lots of quilts, and Pandora radio, with a station for the Pogues, one for Van Morrison and another one for Sister Rosetta Tharpe. I will leave you with this fabulous video, which would make any gloomy day better.

Red

So anyway, I've been painting my nails red since Christmas. I don't know what's gotten into me. I never painted my nails red when I was younger. I painted them sparkly magenta and shiny, coppery gold during the disco years (aka junior high), and that was sort of it other than clear polish for years and years. Never silver or black, never blue, never green, and never, ever red.

But something came over me a few days before Christmas and I bought bottle of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails. As you can see from the above picture, my nails are still short, so it's not like I've got a dragon lady thing going on. Just a red thing.

I'm finding that red nails are fun. They put a little pep in your knitting. I feel very 1940s sitting by the fire clicking out a pair of socks with my red nails. Very retro.

Maybe red nails will become my signature. I have always liked the idea of having a signature something--a signature scent or a signature piece of jewelry. Is this a southern idea or just an old fashioned one? "Oh, Janice is known for always wearing pearl earrings. It's her signature." My grandmother's signature perfume was White Shoulders.

Given that I almost never change anything about myself, I'm sort of one big signature. My signature haircut: short. My signature clothing: jeans and a sweater. Signature shoes: clogs.

Really, I'm very boring. I have an exciting life of the mind, but you'd never know by looking at me day after day.

But now that I have red nails, maybe you would.

Abstinence or Moderation?

Finished Circle of Geese top. Now onto the quilting!

“Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.” Samuel Johnson

Gretchen Rubin over at The Happiness Project is an abstainer. Like Dr. Johnson, quoted above, it's easier for her to give up something entirely than to indulge on occasion. If the choice is frozen yogurt twice a week or not at all, she chooses not at all.

In general, I'm good with moderation, but from time to time I choose abstinence as a way of recalibrating. After my mom was diagnosed with lymphoma last summer, I found myself drinking a glass of wine (or two) on a daily basis, usually while cooking dinner. It wasn't the drinking that bothered me so much as how much I was looking forward to it.

So I decided to stop for a month, to break the habit. In February, I will return to my moderate drinking habits, which means a glass or two over the weekend.

Same with sugar. Much to my amazement, I can go days without sugar. It used to be that I could go a few hours. Then, a few years ago, I gave it up for a long stretch, and the habit was broken. From time to time I abstain for a week or two, to prove to myself that I can.

But you know what's hard for me? Chips of any kind. I can keep cookies in the house, pretzels, crackers, chocolate, ice cream, and as long as they're out of sight, I can ignore them. But if there's a bag of Doritos lurking in a corner somewhere, I will find it and I will eat it. Therefore, chips appear only very rarely in my pantry.

When it comes to being frugal, I'm finding that with a lot of things it's better to abstain: magazines, used books purchased via Amazon.com (too easy to click those buttons in a moment of abandon), trips to Target in general.

The hardest thing is being frugal at the grocery store. I can pass up cookies and bread (easy to make at home, and cheaper), but there's no point in cutting back on breakfast cereal or milk, and fruit and vegetables will always be on my list. Eggs, check. Meat, check. Sometimes I know I can get paper towels or peanut butter cheaper somewhere else, but once I start calculating the price of gas and the value of my time ... it pretty much evens out.

This is not to say that I don't try. We have vegetarian dinners, I stock up on meat when it's on sale, I don't buy much junk. But so far I'm over my frugality budget by about $15 a week. Not horrible, and to be honest, I'm not sure if I can do much better.

What do you abstain from to improve your health, your psyche or your bank balance? What have you given up and are happier for it?

The Horrible Hours

Mosaic blocks! Forty-one in total! I've been working on these on and off since last spring. At last they're ready to be made into a quilt.

For many years now, I've been trying to figure out what to do with the horrible hours. These are the hours between 3 and 6 p.m--which is to say, the hours where my energy is at its lowest and my patience at its thinnest.

The horrible hours are especially horrible during the winter. Once the sun starts its descent, the house gets chillier and I get nappier. My desire most often is to curl up on the couch with a quilt, but there's dinner to be made, lunches to be packed, and  boys to be fetched from hither and yon. The horrible hours are filled with stops and starts.

There may be no cure for it. Maybe I should count my blessings that I have lots of energy in the morning, and then again from after dinner until 9:30 or so. Maybe I should do regularly what I've done from time to time in the past, which is to prep dinner after lunch so that there's not so much to do later and I can take a nap if I want to. I don't mind cooking dinner, but I have to say I'm always happy when we're on the second night of a two-night meal and all I have to do is heat things up.

Does your day contain horrible hours? Are they the same as mine, or do you find yourself lagging late in the morning or in the hours after dinner?

***

This weekend Jack and I had a minor league spat that turned into a really good discussion about the Internet, social media and the difficulty being a parent of a kid whose generation is the first to grow up from day one with computers in their lives. We're pioneers here, all of us, and we have no idea how this computer thing is going to turn out.

What pleased me about this discussion is that it started out as an apology from Jack (well, an apology that didn't actually incorporate the phrase "I'm sorry for slamming my door," but you can't have everything). The fact that he'd done something that upset me and later sought me out to discuss it made me happy.

Jack turns fifteen in April. He is a quiet, private person, but in recent weeks we've had two good conversations about things that are important to us--computers (important to him, concerning to me) and religion (important to me, raising questions for him). They have been honest, funny, fairly open talks. They make me feel hopeful for the future of our relationship.

***

Frugality report: I'm trying to make a tank of gas last as long as I can, which means I'm limiting the number of errands I run. I'm bad about driving to the library whenever a book I've had on hold comes in (and I put tons of books on hold) or if there's something at the grocery store we sort of need, but don't absolutely need. I'm pleased to say that I've used just over a tank of gas since right before the Christmas break.

I'm less pleased that I'm over budget when it comes to my weekly grocery spending. The problem with stocking up is that you can stock up every week if you feel like it. At what point do you stop stocking up?

Well, if I'm going to make my monthly budget for groceries, that point is now. No more stocking up! Enough with the stocking up. Time to eat that tilapia in the deep freeze, even if everyone is less than excited about tilapia. The pioneers were less than excited about eating groundhog, but they did it and survived, and we will, too.

What I'm working on now ... paper piecing!

I don't have any great frugality updates for you, other than I haven't been spending much money. In fact, I have purchased no fabric, books or yarn in 2014. I have requested two interlibrary loans and as a result have established a nice email correspondence with a very helpful librarian at my local branch. His name is Patrick, and he's giving me all sorts of good insider information.

In other news, I found two pairs of Will's clean socks the other night and left them outside his door, as he'd already gone to bed. I believe this was on Sunday. As of today, Wednesday, they are still sitting there. When I say I left them outside of his door, I mean I left them front and center outside of his  door. As in, he would have to step over them every time he entered or exited his room.

They are clearly his socks, and they are clearly clean, but I'm fairly sure it will never, ever occur to Will to pick them up and put them either on his feet or in his sock drawer. They could very well sit there until he goes to college.

I don't really understand boys.

My two favorite Christmas presents so far: 1) My Fit Bit pedometer. I slip it in my pocket every day and it tells me how many steps I've taken, how many calories I've burned, and what time it is. It also flashes me a little smiley face from time to time. When I sit down at my computer and pull up the Fit Bit site, all my information gets synced and I get all sorts of positive feedback for steps taken and calories burned. Hooray! I am a champ!

I fear that my Fit Bit device is also recording all sorts of other information  (credit card numbers, prescriptions, calls made), and feeding it to various authorities, possibly the NSA. But that little smiley face makes it all worthwhile!

Seriously, I'm trying to lose twenty pounds by my 50th birthday (May 30th, put it on your calendars!), and the only way that's going to happen is if I keep track of what I'm eating and make exercise a priority. My little Fit Bit makes keeping track fun.

2) My other favorite gift, and probably my very favorite gift, is a birdfeeder. It hangs outside my kitchen window and has quickly become the gathering spot for all the neighborhood birds and, unfortunately, the squirrels. The Man keeps saying he's going to make it so the squirrels can't get on it, but I say good luck. Last summer I had squirrels drinking upside down from my hummingbird feeder. The squirrels are ruthless and will stop at nothing. Fortunately, they're so fat they fall off from time to time, and the birds get a turn at the table.

Almost time to order seeds! Here in North Carolina, we'll start planting our spring gardens next month. Will this be the year I convince the Man to turn the front yard into a pumpkin patch? Stay tuned!

Friday Report

A little Friday humor for you.

Well, my dears, we have some very good news: my mom is in remission! No lymphoma cells in her bone marrow, no lymphoma cells anywhere.

Basically, my mom kicked cancer's butt.

Now, lymphomas are infamous for coming back, and my mom has to stay cancer-free for two years before she's considered cured. Still, you have to admit this is excellent news. Thank you for all your prayers during the last six months. They helped.

So that's a nice way to start off a Friday report, isn't it? In other nice news, it turns out that Jack, who has been living in Jack World for a long, long time, oblivious to the more practical aspects of life, is starting to pay attention.

Yesterday, for instance, I forgot to get the boys' lunches out of the fridge in the morning and put them next to their backpacks. I never forget to do this, although from time to time I almost forget, but I always catch myself and remember. Anyhoo, yesterday I forgot, and I didn't remember until 9 a.m. I was about to sit down to work, so I wasn't happy that I was going to have to drive the boys' lunches to their schools and drop them off with the school secretaries, which meant I was going to have to comb my hair and dab on some makeup and make myself presentable. Sigh.

But lo and behold, when I went to the fridge, the lunches weren't there! Had I put them in the pantry overnight by mistake? Nope. Not in the pantry, not in the mud room, not anywhere. The lunches had disappeared!

I emailed Will's homeroom teacher and asked if she'd check with him, and she emailed back ten minutes later to say Will's lunch was in his cubby and described what was in it (yogurt, grapes, goldfish) to ascertain if it was in fact today's lunch, which it was. I texted Jack, and he, too, had his lunch on the premises. So how did it get there?

The Man tried to convince me (gaslight me, more like it) that I had in fact put out the lunches and just forgotten. Not that he'd witnessed me doing so, but that had to be what had happened. It must be such a part of my routine, that I'd done it without noticing. No, I insisted, I'd remember. I would, too. But maybe I was going crazy! Maybe I was finally starting menopause. What else would explain it?

Well, what explains it is this: Jack is always last to the car, and when he went to grab his lunch, it wasn't where it usually is, so--get this--he went to the kitchen and looked for it in the fridge. Which is where it was, of course, nestled next to Will's lunch. So--get this--he grabbed his lunch AND Will's lunch. Both of them! He didn't get in the car and say, "Mom, where's my lunch?" and he didn't just grab his own lunch. Without any kind of fuss, he got his lunch AND his brother's lunch and he came out to the car and put his brother's lunch next his brother's back pack.

How do I know this? When I picked up Will, I said, "Will, how did you get your lunch today? and he answered, "Jack brought it out to the car for me."

Reader, I nearly fainted. I suppose the amount of pride I felt that my fourteen-year-old son can get his own lunch from the refrigerator and deduce that his eleven-year-old brother might also enjoy lunch today should be considered sad and pathetic, but there you have it. I am a proud mama. I am glowing with pride.

***

Frugality news: As discussed in my last post (and affirmed in the comments), a lot of frugality advice is not useful to the semi-frugal. But Jody led me to a blog that I think is very useful indeed. It's called Living Well, Spending Less, and I like it a lot. The writer's number one piece of advice on how to slash your grocery bill is to stock up on your frequently purchased items when they go on sale (which, she says, happens every 6-8 weeks). This is something I do sporadically, but not systematically. As it just so happens, my store is having a big two for one sale this week, and I stocked up big time.

To take advantage of this, one of my weekend projects is to take inventory of my freezer,  deep freeze, and pantry, so that I know what I have and what I need. I'd like to get to the point where there's a week at least every two months (maybe every month) where all I have to get at the store is milk and juice.

So the question for you this weekend: How long could you go without going grocery shopping? A week? Two weeks? Twenty-four hours? Do tell!